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WESTWARD  WITH 
THE  PRINCE  OF  WALES 


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H.    R.    H.    THE    PRINCE   0¥    WALES 


WESTWARD  WITH 
THE  PRINCE  OF  WALES 


BY 

W.  DOUGLAS  NEWTON 

AUTHORIZED    CORRESPONDENT    IN    AMERICA    WITH 

H.    R.    H.    THE  PRINCE    OE    WALES 

AUTHOR   OF   "green    LADIES,"    "tHE    WAR   CACHE,"  ETC. 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK  LONDON 

1920 


COPYRIGHT,  1920,  BY 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


PBINTKD    IN    THK    ITNITKO    STATUS    07    AMIBICA 


tJRL 


TO 

"A.  B." 

AND  THE  CARGO  OF  "CARNARVON." 


PREFACE 

It  was  on  Friday,  August  i,  1919,  that  "the 
damned  reporters  "  and  the  Times  correspondent's 
hatbox  went  on  board  the  light  cruiser  Dauntless 
at  Devonport. 

The  Dauntless  had  just  arrived  from  the  Baltic 
to  load  up  cigarettes  —  at  least,  that  was  the  first 
impression.  In  the  Baltic  the  rate  of  exchange  had 
risen  from  roubles  to  packets  of  Players,  and  a 
handful  of  cigarettes  would  buy  things  that  money 
could  not  obtain.  Into  the  midst  of  a  ship's  com- 
pany, feverishly  accumulating  tobacco  in  the  hope 
of  cornering  at  least  the  amber  market  of  the  world, 
we  descended. 

Actually,  I  suppose.  His  Royal  Highness  the 
Prince  of  Wales  had  been  the  first  interrupter  of 
the  Dauntless'  schemes.  Lying  alongside  Deven- 
port  quay  to  refit  —  in  that  way  were  the  cigarettes 
covered  up  —  word  was  sent  that  the  Dauntless 
with  her  sister  ship,  Dragon,  was  to  act  as  escort  to 
the  battle-cruiser  Renown  when  she  carried  the 
Prince  to  Canada. 

Though  he  came  first  we  could  not  expect  to  be  as 
popular  as  the  Prince,  and  when,  therefore,  those  on 
board  also  learnt  that  the  honour  of  acting  as  escort 
was  to  be  considerably  mitigated  by  a  cargo  from 
Fleet  Street,  they  were  no  doubt  justified  in  naming 
us  *'  damned." 

We  did  litter  them  up  so.  The  Dauntless  is  not 
merely  one  of  the  latest  and  fastest  of  the  light 


viii  Preface 

cruisers,  she  is  also  first  among  the  smartest.  To 
accommodate  us  they  had  to  give  way  to  a  rash  of 
riveters  from  the  dock-yard  who  built  cabins  all 
over  the  graceful  silhouette.  When  our  telegrams, 
and  ourselves,  and  our  baggage  (including  the 
Times'  hatbox)  arrived  piece  by  piece,  each  was 
merely  an  addition  to  the  awful  mess  on  deck  our 
coming  had  meant. 

Actually  we  could  not  help  ourselves.  Dock 
strikes,  ship  shortage  and  the  holiday  season  had  all 
conspired  to  make  any  attempt  to  get  to  Canada  in 
a  legitimate  way  a  hopeless  task.  Only  the  Ad- 
miralty's idea  to  pre-date  the  carrying  of  commer- 
cial travellers  on  British  battleships  could  get  us  to 
the  West  at  all.  The  Admiralty,  after  modest  hesi- 
tation, had  agreed  to  send  us  in  the  Dauntless,  and 
before  the  cruiser  sailed  we  all  realized  how  for- 
tunate we  were  to  have  been  unlucky  at  the  outset. 

We  sailed  on  August  2  from  Devonport,  three 
days  before  Renown  and  Dragon  left  Portsmouth, 
and  when  one  of  us  suggested  that  this  was  a  happy 
Idea  to  get  us  to  St.  John's,  Newfoundland,  in  order 
to  be  ready  for  the  Prince,  he  was  told: 

"  Not  at  all,  we're  out  looking  for  icebergs." 

We  were  to  act  as  the  pilot  ship  over  the  course. 

We  found  icebergs,  many  of  them;  even,  we 
nearly  rammed  an  iceberg  in  the  middle  of  a  foggy 
night,  but  we  found  other  things,  too. 

We  found  that  we  had  got  onto  what  the  Navy 
calls  a  "  happy  ship,"  and  if  anybody  wants  to  taste 
what  real  good  fellowship  is  I  advise  him  to  go  to 
sea  on  what  the  Navy  calls  "  a  happy  ship."     How- 


Preface  ix 

ever  much  we  had  disturbed  them,  the  officers  of 
the  Dauntless  did  not  let  that  make  any  difference  in 
the  warmth  of  their  hospitality.  We  were  made 
free  of  the  ward-room,  and  that  Baltic  tobacco. 
We  were  initiated  into  "  The  Grand  National,"  a 
muscular  sport  in  which  the  daring  exponent  turns 
a  series  of  somersaults  over  the  backs  of  a  line  of 
chairs;  and  we  were  admitted  into  the  raggings  and 
the  singing  of  ragtime. 

We  were  made  splendidly  at  home.  Not  only  in 
the  ward-room  that  did  a  jazz  with  a  disturbing 
spiral  movement  when  we  speeded  up  from  our 
casual  1 8  knots  to  something  like  28  in  a  rough  sea, 
but  from  the  bridge  down  to  the  boiler  room,  where 
we  watched  the  flames  of  oil  fuel  making  steam  in 
the  modern  manner,  we  were  drawn  into  the 
charmed  circle  of  comradeship  and  keenness  that 
made  up  the  essential  spirit  of  that  fine  ship's  com- 
pany. 

The  "  damned  reporters,"  on  a  trip  in  which  even 
the  weather  was  companionable,  were  given  the 
damnedest  of  good  times,  and  it  was  with  real  re- 
gret that,  on  the  evening  of  P>iday,  August  8,  we 
saw  the  high,  grim  rampart  wall  of  Newfoundland 
lift  from  the  Western  sea  to  tell  us  that  our  time  on 
the  Dauntless  would  soon  be  finished. 

Actually  we  left  the  Dauntless  at  St.  John's,  New 
Brunswick,  where  we  became  the  guests  of  the  Cana- 
dian Government  which  looked  after  us,  as  it  looked 
after  the  whole  party,  with  so  great  a  sense  of  gen- 
erosity and  care  that  we  could  never  feel  sufficiently 
grateful  to  it. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

Preface vii 

I    Newfoundland i 

II    St.  John,  New  Brunswick 19 

III  On  the  Train  between  St.  John  and  Halifax     .     .     37 

IV  Halifax,  Nova  Scotia 44 

V    Charlottetown,   Prince   Edward  Island  and  Habi- 
tant,  Canada 5S 

VI    Quebec        67 

VII    The  Mobile  Hotel  de  Luxe:  The  Royal  Train     .     .     83 
VIII    The  City  of  Crowds:  Toronto:  Ontario     ....     91 

IX    Ottawa "3 

X    Montreal:  Quebec 131 

XI    On  the  Road  to  Trout 140 

XII    Picnics  and  Prairies 151 

XIII  The  City  of  Wheat:  W^innipeg,  Manitoba     .     .     .  164 

XIV  The  Fringe  of  the  Great  North-West:  Saskatoon 

and  Edmonton 183 

XV    Calgary  and  the  Cattle  Ranch 197 

XVI     Chief    Morning    Star    Comes    to    Banff    and    the 

Rockies 207 

XVII    The  Pacific  Cities  :  Vancouver  and  Victoria,  British 

Columbia 222 

XVIII    Apple  Land:  Okanagan  and  Kootenay  Lakes     .     .  239 

XIX    The  Prairies  Again 249 

XX    Silver,  Gold  and  Commerce 263 

XXI    Niagara  and  the  Towns  of  V^^estern  Ontario     .     .  275 
XXII    Montreal         289 

XXIII  Washington 303 

XXIV  New   York 321 

xi 


WESTWARD  WITH 
THE  PRINCE  OF  WALES 


CHAPTER  I 

NEWFOUNDLAND 


ST.  JOHN'S,  Newfoundland,  was  the  first  city 
of  the  Western  continent  to  see  the  Prince  of 
Wales.  It  was  also  the  first  to  label  him  with 
one  of  the  affectionate,  if  inexplicable  sobriquets  that 
the  West  is  so  fond  of. 

Leaning  over  the  side  of  the  Dauntless  on  the  day 
of  the  Prince's  visit,  a  seaman  smiled  down,  as  sea- 
men sometimes  do,  at  a  vivid  little  Newfoundland 
Flapper  in  a  sunset-coloured  jumper  bodice,  New 
York  cut  skirt,  white  stockings  and  white  canvas 
boots.  The  Flapper  looked  up  from  her  seat  in  the 
stern  of  her  "  gas  "  launch  (gasolene  equals  petrol), 
and  smiled  back,  as  is  the  Flapper  habit,  and  the  sea- 
man promptly  opened  conversation  by  asking  if  the 
Flapper  had  seen  the  Prince. 

"  You  bet,"  said  the  Flapper.  "  He's  a  dandy 
boy.     He's  a  plush." 

His  Royal  Highness  became  many  things  in  his 
travels  across  America,  but  I  think  it  ought  to  go 
down  in  history  that  at  St.  John's,  Newfoundland,  he 
became  a  "  plush." 

I 


2      Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

Newfoundland  also  introduced  another  Western 
phenomenon.  It  presented  us  to  the  race  of  false 
prophets  whom  we  were  to  see  go  down  in  confusion 
all  the  way  from  St.  John's  to  Victoria  and  back 
again  to  New  York. 

Members  of  this  race  were  plentiful  in  St.  John's. 
As  we  spent  our  days  before  the  Prince's  arrival  pick- 
ing up  facts  and  examining  the  many  beautiful  arches 
of  triumph  that  were  being  put  up  in  the  town,  we 
were  warned  not  to  expect  too  much  from  New- 
foundland. St.  John's  had  not  its  bump  of  enthusi- 
asm largely  developed,  we  were  told;  its  people  were 
resolutely  dour  and  we  must  not  be  disappointed  if 
the  Prince's  reception  lacked  warmth.  In  all  prob- 
ability the  weather  would  conform  to  the  general 
habit  and  be  foggy. 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  prophets  were  confounded. 
St.  John's  proved  second  to  none  in  the  warmth  of 
its  affectionate  greeting  —  that  splendid  spontaneous 
welcome  which  the  whole  West  gave  to  the  Prince 
upset  all  preconceived  notions,  swept  away  all  sense 
of  set  ceremonial  and  made  the  tour  from  the  begin- 
ning to  the  end  the  most  happy  progress  of  a  sympa- 
thetic and  responsive  youth  through  a  continent  of 
intimate  personal  friends. 

II 

The  Dauntless  went  out  from  St.  John's  on  Sun- 
day, August  lo,  to  rendezvous  with  Renown  and 
Dragon,  and  the  three  great  modern  warships  came 
together  on  a  glorious  Western  evening. 

There  was  a  touch  of  drama  in  the  meeting.     In 


Newfoundland 


the  marvellous  clear  air  of  gold  and  blue  that  only 
the  American  Continent  can  show,  we  picked  up 
Renown  at  a  point  when  she  was  entering  a  long 
avenue  of  icebergs.  There  were  eleven  of  these 
splendid  white  fellows  in  view  on  the  skyline  when  we 
turned  to  lead  the  great  battleship  back  to  the  an- 
chorage in  Conception  Bay,  north  of  St.  John's,  and 
as  the  ships  followed  us  it  was  as  though  the  Prince 
had  entered  a  processional  way  set  with  great  pylons 
arranged  deliberately  to  mark  the  last  phase  of  his 
route  to  the  Continent  of  the  West. 

Some  of  these  bergs  were  as  large,  as  massive  and 
as  pinnacled  as  cathedrals,  some  were  humped 
mounds  that  lifted  sullenly  from  the  radiant  sea, 
some  were  treacherous  little  crags  circled  by  rings  of 
detached  floes  —  the  "  growlers,"  those  almost 
wholly  submerged  masses  of  ice  that  the  sailor  fears 
most.  Most  of  the  bergs  in  the  two  irregular  lines 
were  distant,  and  showed  as  patches  of  curiously  lum- 
inant  whiteness  against  the  intense  blue  of  the  sky. 
Some  were  close  enough  for  us  to  see  the  wonderful 
semi-transparent  green  of  the  cracks  and  fissures  in 
their  sides  and  the  vivid  emerald  at  the  base  that 
the  bursting  seas  seemed  to  be  eternally  polishing 
anew. 

When  Renown  was  sighted,  a  mere  smudge  on  the 
horizon,  we  saw  the  flash  of  her  guns  and  heard 
faintly  the  thud  of  the  explosions.  She  was  getting 
in  some  practice  with  her  four-inch  guns  on  the  en- 
ticing targets  of  the  bergs. 

We  were  too  far  away  to  see  results,  but  we  were 
told  that  as  a  spectacle  the  effect  of  the  shell-bursts 


/ 


4      Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

on  the  ice  crags  was  remarkable.  Under  the  explo- 
sions the  immense  masses  of  these  translucent  fairy 
islands  rocked  and  changed  shape.  Faces  of  ice 
cliffs  crumbled  under  the  hits  and  sent  down  ava- 
lanches of  ice  into  the  furious  green  seas  the  shocks 
of  the  explosions  had  raised. 

This  was  one  of  the  few  incidents  in  a  journey 
made  under  perfect  weather  conditions  in  a  vessel 
that  is  one  of  the  "  wonder  ships  "  of  the  British 
Navy.  The  huge  Renown  had  behaved  admirably 
throughout  the  passage.  She  had  travelled  at  a 
slow  speed,  for  her,  most  of  the  time,  but  there  had 
been  a  spell  of  about  an  hour  when  she  had  worked 
up  to  the  prodigious  rate  of  thirty-one  knots  an  hour. 
Under  these  test  conditions  she  had  travelled  like  an 
express  with  no  more  structural  movement  than  is 
felt  in  a  well-sprung  Pullman  carriage. 

The  Prince  had  employed  his  five  day's  journey  by 
indulging  his  fancy  for  getting  to  know  how  things 
are  done.  Each  day  he  had  spent  two  hours  in  a 
different  part  of  the  ship  having  its  function  and 
mechanism  explained  to  him  by  the  officer  in  charge. 

As  he  proved  later  in  Canada  when  visiting  vari- 
ous industrial  and  agricultural  plants,  His  Royal 
Highness  has  the  modern  curiosity  and  interest  for 
the  mechanics  of  things.  Indeed,  throughout  the 
journey  he  showed  a  distinct  inclination  towards  peo- 
ple and  the  work  that  ordinary  people  did,  rather 
than  in  the  contemplation  of  views  however  splendid, 
and  the  report  that  he  said  at  one  time,  "  Oh,  Lord, 
let's  cut  all  this  scenery  and  get  back  to  towns  and 
crowds,"  is  certainly  true  in  essence  if  not  in  fact. 


Newfoundland 


It  was  in  the  beautiful  morning  of  August  nth 
that  the  Prince  made  his  first  landfall  in  the  West, 
and  saw  in  the  distance  the  great  curtain  of  high  rock, 
that  makes  the  grim  coast-line  of  Newfoundland. 

For  reasons  of  the  Renown's  tonnage  he  had  to  go 
into  Conception  Bay,  one  of  the  many  great  sacks  of 
inlets  that  make  the  island  something  that  resembles 
nothing  so  much  as  a  section  of  a  jig-saw  puzzle. 
The  harbour  of  St.  John's  could  float  Renown,  but  its 
narrow  waters  would  not  permit  her  to  turn,  and  the 
Prince  had  to  transfer  his  Staff  and  baggage  to 
Dragon  in  order  to  complete  the  next  stage  of  the 
voyage. 

Conception  Bay  is  a  fjord  thrusting  its  way 
through  the  jaws  of  strong,  sharp  hills  of  red  sand- 
stone piled  up  in  broken  and  stratified  masses  above 
grey  slate  rock.  On  these  hills  cling  forests  of 
spruce  and  larch  in  woolly  masses  that  march  down 
the  combes  to  the  very  water's  edge.  It  is  wild 
scenery,  Scandinavian  and  picturesque. 

In  the  combes  —  the  "  outports  "  they  are  called 
—  are  the  small,  scattered  villages  of  the  fishermen. 
The  wooden  frame  houses  have  the  look  of  the  pack- 
ing-case, and  though  they  are  bright  and  toy-like 
when  their  green  or  red  or  cinnamon  paint  is  fresh, 
they  are  woefully  drab  when  the  weather  of  several 
years  has  had  its  way  with  them. 

In  front  of  most  of  the  houses  are  the  "  flakes," 
or  drying  platforms  where  the  split  cod  is  exposed  to 
the  air.  These  "  flakes  "  are  built  up  among  the 
ledges  and  crevices  of  the  rock,  being  supported  by 
numberless  legs  of  thin  spruce  mast;  the  effect  of 


6       Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 


these  spidery  platforms,  the  painted  houses,  the 
sharp  stratified  red  rock  and  the  green  massing  of  the 
trees  is  that  of  a  Japanese  vignette  set  down  amid 
inappropriate  scenery. 

Cod  fishing  is,  of  course,  the  beginning  and  the 
end  of  the  life  of  many  of  these  villages  on  the  bays 
that  indent  so  deeply  the  Newfoundland  coast.  It  is 
not  the  adventurous  fishing  of  the  Grand  Banks; 
there  is  no  need  for  that.  There  is  all  the  food  and 
the  income  man  needs  in  the  crowded  local  waters. 
Men  have  only  to  go  out  in  boats  with  hook  and  line 
to  be  sure  of  large  catches. 

Only  a  few  join  the  men  who  live  farther  to  the 
south,  about  Cape  Race,  in  their  trips  to  the  misty 
waters  of  the  Grand  Banks.  Here  they  put  off  from 
their  schooners  in  dories  and  make  their  haul  with 
hook  and  line. 

A  third  branch  of  these  fishers,  particularly  those 
to  the  north  of  St.  John's,  push  up  to  the  Labrador 
coast,  where  in  the  bays,  or  "  fishing  rooms,"  they 
catch,  split,  head,  salt  and  dry  the  superabundant 
fish. 

By  these  methods  vast  quantities  of  cod  and  sal- 
mon are  caught,  and,  as  in  the  old  days  when  the 
hardy  fishermen  of  Devon,  Brittany,  Normandy  and 
Portugal  were  the  only  workers  in  these  little  known 
seas,  practically  all  the  catch  Is  shipped  to  England 
and  France.  During  the  war  the  cod  fishers  of  New- 
foundland played  a  very  useful  part  in  mitigating 
the  stringency  of  the  British  ration-cards,  and  there 
are  hopes  that  this  good  work  may  be  extended,  and 
that  by  setting  up  a  big  refrigerating  plant  New- 


Newfoundland  7 

foundland  may  enlarge  her  market  in  Britain  and 
the  world. 

With  the  fishery  goes  the  more  dangerous  calling 
of  sealing.  For  this  the  men  of  Newfoundland  set 
out  in  the  winter  and  the  spring  to  the  fields  of  flat 
*'  pan  "  ice  to  hunt  the  seal  schools. 

At  times  this  means  a  march  across  the  ice  deserts 
for  many  days  and  the  danger  of  being  cut  off  by 
blizzards;  when  that  happens  no  more  news  is  heard 
of  the  adventurous  hunters. 

Every  few  years  Newfoundland  writes  down  the 
loss  of  a  ship's  company  of  her  too  few  young  men, 
for  Newfoundland,  very  little  helped  by  immigra- 
tion, exists  on  her  native  born.  "  A  crew  every  six 
or  eight  years,  we  reckon  it  that  way,"  you  are  told. 
It  is  part  of  the  hard  life  the  Islanders  lead,  an  ex- 
pected debit  to  place  against  the  profits  of  the  rich 
fur  trade. 

Solidly  blocking  the  heart  of  Conception  Bay  is  a 
big  island,  the  high  and  irregular  outline  of  which 
seems  to  have  been  cut  down  sharply  with  a  knife. 
This  is  Bell  Island,  which  is  not  so  much  an  island  as 
a  great,  if  accidental,  iron  mine. 

Years  ago,  when  the  island  was  merely  the  home 
of  farmers  and  fishermen,  a  shipowner  in  need  of 
easily  handled  ballast  found  that  the  subsoil  con- 
tained just  the  thing  he  wanted.  By  turning  up  the 
thin  surface  he  came  upon  a  stratum  of  small,  square 
slabs  of  rock  rather  like  cakes  of  soap.  These  were 
easily  lifted  and  easily  carted  to  his  ship. 

He  initiated  the  habit  of  taking  rock  from  Bell 
Island  for  ballast,  and  for  years  shipmasters  loaded 


8      Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 


it  up,  to  dump  it  overboard  with  just  as  much  uncon- 
cern when  they  took  their  cargo  inboard.  It  was 
some  time  before  an  inquiring  mind  saw  something 
to  attract  it  in  the  rock  ballast;  the  rock  was  anal- 
yzed and  found  to  contain  iron. 

Turned  into  a  profiteer  by  this  astonishing  dis- 
covery, the  owner  of  the  ground  where  the  slabs  were 
found  clung  tenaciously  to  his  holding  until  he  had 
forced  the  price  up  to  the  incredible  figure  of  lOO 
dollars.  He  sold  with  the  joyous  satisfaction  of  a 
man  making  a  shrewd  deal. 

His  ground  has  changed  hands  several  times  since, 
and  the  prices  paid  have  advanced  somewhat  on  his 
optimistic  figure;  for  example,  the  present  company 
bought  it  for  two  million  dollars. 

The  ore  is  not  high  grade,  but  is  easily  obtained, 
and  so  can  be  handled  profitably.  In  the  beginning 
it  was  only  necessary  to  turn  over  the  turf  and  take 
what  was  needed,  the  labour  costing  less  than  a 
shilling  a  ton.  Now  the  mines  strike  down  through 
the  rock  of  the  island  beneath  the  sea,  and  the  cost 
of  handling  is  naturally  greater.  It  is  worth  noting 
that  prior  to  19 14  practically  all  the  output  of  this 
essentially  British  mine  went  to  Germany;  the  war 
has  changed  that  and  now  Canada  takes  the  lion's 
share. 

It  was  under  the  cliffs  of  Bell.  Island,  near  the 
point  where  the  long  lattice-steel  conveyors  bring 
the  ore  from  the  cliff-top  to  the  water-level,  that 
the  three  w^arships  dropped  anchor.  As  they 
swung  on  their  cables  blasting  operations  in  the 
iron  cliffs  sent  out  the  thud  of  their  explosions  and 


Newfoundland 


big  columns  of  smoke  and  dust,  for  all  the  world  as 
though  a  Royal  salute  was  being  fired  in  honour  of 
the   Prince's   arrival. 


Ill 

During  the  day  His  Royal  Highness  went  ashore 
informally,  mainly  to  satisfy  his  craving  for  walking 
exercise.  Before  he  did  so,  he  received  the  British 
correspondents  on  board  the  Renown,  and  a  few  min- 
utes were  spent  chatting  with  him  in  the  charming 
and  spacious  suite  of  rooms  that  Navy  magic  had 
erected  with  such  efficiency  that  one  had  to  convince 
oneself  that  one  really  was  on  a  battleship  and  not  in 
a  hotel  de  luxe. 

We  met  a  young  man  in  a  rather  light  grey  lounge 
suit,  whose  boyish  figure  is  thickening  into  the  out- 
lines of  manhood.  I  have  heard  him  described  as 
frail;  and  a  Canadian  girl  called  him  "  a  little  bit  of 
a  feller  "  in  my  hearing.  But  one  has  only  to  note 
an  excellent  pair  of  shoulders  and  the  strength  of  his 
long  body  to  understand  how  he  can  put  in  a  twenty- 
hour  day  of  unresting  strenuosity  in  running,  riding, 
walking  and  dancing  without  turning  a  hair. 

It  is  the  neat,  small  features,  the  nose  a  little  in- 
clined to  tilt,  a  soft  and  almost  girlish  fairness  of 
complexion,  and  the  smooth  and  remarkable  gold 
hair  that  give  him  the  suggestion  of  extreme  boyish- 
ness —  these  things  and  his  nervousness. 

His  nervousness  is  part  of  his  naturalness  and  lack 
of  poise.  It  showed  itself  then,  and  always,  in  char- 
acteristic gestures,  a  tugging  at  the  tie,  the  smooth- 


10    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

ing-down  of  the  hair  with  the  flat  of  the  hand,  the 
furious  digging  of  fists  into  pockets,  a  clutching  at 
coat  lapels,  and  a  touch  of  hesitance  before  he  speaks. 

He  comes  at  you  with  a  sort  of  impulsive  friendli- 
ness, his  body  hitched  a  little  sideways  by  the  nerv- 
ous drag  of  a  leg.  His  grip  is  a  good  one;  he  meets 
your  eyes  squarely  in  a  long  glance  to  which  the  dark- 
ness about  his  eyes  adds  intensity,  as  though  he  is 
getting  your  features  into  his  memory  for  all  time, 
in  the  resolve  to  keep  you  as  a  friend. 

He  speaks  well,  with  an  attractive  manner  and  a 
clear  enunciation  that  not  even  acute  nervousness  can 
slur  or  disorganize.  He  is,  in  fact,  an  excellent  pub- 
lic speaker,  never  missing  the  value  of  a  sentence, 
and  managing  his  voice  so  well  that  even  in  the  open 
air  people  are  able  to  follow  what  he  says  at  a  dis- 
tance that  renders  other  speakers  inaudible. 

In  private  he  Is  as  clear,  but  more  impulsive.  He 
makes  little  darting  interjections  which  seem  part  of 
a  similar  movement  of  hands,  or  the  whole  of  the 
body,  and  he  speaks  with  eagerness,  as  though  he 
found  most  things  jolly  and  worth  while,  and  expects 
you  do  too.  Obviously  he  finds  zest  in  ordinary 
human  things,  and  not  a  little  humour,  also,  for  there 
is  more  often  than  not  a  twinkle  in  his  eyes  that  gives 
character  to  his  friendly  smile  —  that  extraordin- 
arily ready  smile,  which  comes  so  spontaneously  and 
delightfully,  and  which  became  a  byword  over  the 
whole  continent  of  the  West. 

It  Is  this  friendly  and  unstudied  manner  that  wins 
him  so  much  affection.  It  makes  all  feel  immedi- 
ately that  he  is  extraordinarily  human  and  extraordi- 


Newfoundland  1 1 

narily  responsive,  and  that  there  are  no  barriers  or 
reticences  in  intercouse  with  him. 

He  is  not  an  intellectual,  and  he  certainly  is  not  a 
dullard.  He  rather  fills  the  average  of  the  youth  of 
modern  times,  with  an  extreme  fondness  for  modern 
activities,  which  include  golfing,  running  and  walk- 
ing; jazz  music  and  jazz  dancing  (when  the  pretti- 
ness  of  partners  is  by  no  means  a  deterrent),  sight- 
seeing and  the  rest,  and  my  own  impression  is,  that 
he  is  much  more  at  home  in  the  midst  of  a  hearty 
crowd  —  the  more  democratic  the  better  —  than  in 
the  most  august  of  formal  gatherings. 

The  latter,  too,  means  speech-making,  and  he  has, 
I  fancy,  a  young  man's  loathing  of  making  speeches. 
He  makes  them  —  on  certain  occasions  he  had  to 
make  them  three  times  and  more  a  day — and  he 
makes  good  ones,  but  he  would  rather,  I  think,  hold 
an  open  reception  where  Tom,  Dick,  Vera,  Phyllis 
and  Harry  crowded  about  him  in  a  democratic  mob 
to  shake  his  hand. 

Yet  though  he  does  not  like  speech-making,  he 
showed  from  the  beginning  that  he  meant  to  master 
the  repugnant  art.  To  read  speeches,  as  he  did  in 
the  early  days  of  the  tour,  was  not  good  enough. 
He  schooled  himself  steadily  to  deliver  them  without 
manuscript,  so  that  by  the  end  of  the  trip  he  was  able 
to  deliver  a  long  and  important  speech  —  such  as 
that  at  Massey  Hall,  Toronto,  on  November  4  — 
practically  without  referring  to  his  notes. 

During  his  day  in  Conception  Bay,  the  Prince  went 
ashore  and  spent  some  time  amid  the  beautiful 
scenery  of  rocky,  spruce-clad  hills  and  valleys,  where 


/ 


12     Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

the  forests  and  the  many  rocky  streams  give  earnest 
of  the  fine  sport  in  game  and  fish  for  which  New- 
foundland is  famous. 

The  crews  of  the  battleships  went  ashore,  also,  to 
the  scattered  little  hamlet  of  Topsail,  lured  there, 
perhaps,  by  the  legend  that  Topsail  is  called  the 
Brighton  of  Newfoundland.  It  is  certainly  a  pretty 
place,  with  its  brightly  painted,  deep-porched  wooden 
houses  set  amid  the  trees  in  that  rugged  country,  but 
the  inhabitants  were  led  astray  by  local  pride  when 
they  dragged  in  Brighton.  The  local  "  Old  Ship  " 
is  the  grocer's,  who  also  happened  to  be  the  Self- 
ridge's  of  the  hamlet,  and  his  good  red  wine  or 
brown  ale,  or  whatever  is  yours,  is  Root  Beer! 

For  many  of  the  battleships'  crews  it  was  the  first 
impact  with  the  Country  of  the  Dry,  and  the  shock 
was  profound. 

"  I  was  ashore  five  hours,  waiting  for  the  blinkin' 
liberty  boat  to  come  and  take  me  off,"  said  one  sea- 
man, in  disgust.  "  Five  hours !  And  all  I  had  was 
a  water  —  and  that  was  warm." 


IV 

On  Tuesday,  August  12,  the  Prince  transferred  to 
Dragon  and  in  company  with  Dauntless  steamed 
towards  St.  John's,  along  the  grim,  sheer  coast  of 
Newfoundland,  where  squared  promontories  stand- 
ing out  like  buttresses  give  the  impression  that  they 
are  bastions  set  in  the  wall  of  a  castle  built  by  giants. 

The  gateway  to  St.  John's  harbour  is  a  mere  sally- 
port in  that  castle  wall.     It  is  an  abrupt  opening, 


Newfoundland  13 


and  is  entered  through  the  high  and  commanding 
posts  of  Signal  and  the  lighthouse  hills. 

One  can  conceive  St.  John's  as  the  ideal  pirate  lair 
of  a  romance-maker  of  the  Stevensonian  tradition, 
and  one  can  understand  it  appealing  to  the  bold,  free- 
booting  instincts  of  the  first  daring  settlers.  A  ring 
of  rough,  stratified  hills  grips  the  harbour  water 
about,  sheltering  it  from  storms  and  land  enemies, 
while  with  the  strong  hills  at  the  water-gate  to  com- 
mand it,  and  a  chain  drawn  across  its  Narrows,  it 
was  safe  from  incursion  of  water-borne  foes. 

It  was  the  fitting  stronghold  of  the  reckless  Devon, 
Irish  and  Scots  fishermen  who  followed  Cabot  to  the 
old  Norse  Helluland,  the  "  Land  of  Naked  Rocks," 
and  who  vied  and  fought  with,  and  at  length  ruled 
with  the  rough  justice  of  the  "  Fishing  Admirals  " 
the  races  of  Biscayan  and  Portuguese  men  who  made 
the  island  not  a  home  but  a  centre  of  the  great  cod 
fishery  that  supplied  Europe. 

St.  John's  has  laboured  under  its  disadvantages 
ever  since  those  days.  The  town  has  been  pinched 
between  the  steep  hills,  and  forced  to  straggle  back 
for  miles  along  the  harbour  inlet.  On  the  southern 
side  of  the  basin  the  slope  has  beaten  the  builder, 
and  on  the  dominant  green  hill,  through  the  grass  of 
which  thrusts  grey  and  red-brown  masses  of  the 
sharp-angled  rock  stratum,  there  are  very  few  houses. 

On  the  north,  humanity  has  made  a  fight  for  it, 
and  the  white,  dusty  roads  struggle  with  an  almost 
visible  effort  up  the  heavy  grade  of  the  hill  until  they 
attain  the  summit.  The  effect  is  of  a  terraced  and 
piled-up  city,  straggling  in  haphazard  fashion  up  to 


14    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

the  point  where  the  great  Roman  Catholic  cathedral, 
square-hewn  and  twin-towered,  crowns  the  mass  of 
the  town. 

Plank  frame  houses,  their  paint  dingy  and  grey, 
with  stone  and  brick  buildings,  jostle  each  other  on 
the  hill-side  streets,  innocent  of  sidewalks.  The 
main  thoroughfare.  Water  Street,  which  runs  paral- 
lel with  the  harbour  and  the  rather  casual  wharves,  is 
badly  laid,  and  given  to  an  excess  of  mud  in  wet 
weather,  mud  that  the  single-deck  electric  trams  on 
their  bumpy  track  distribute  lavishly.  The  black 
pine  masts  that  serve  as  telegraph-poles  are  set 
squarely  and  frequently  in  the  street,  and  overhead  is 
the  heavy  mesh  of  cables  and  wires  that  forms  an  es- 
sential part  of  all  civic  scenery  in  the  West.  The 
buildings  and  shops  along  this  street  are  not  impos- 
ing, and  there  seems  a  need  for  revitalization  in  the 
town,  either  through  a  keener  overseas  trading  and 
added  shipping  facilities,  or  a  broader  and  more  en- 
couraging local  policy. 

Most  of  the  goods  for  sale  were  American,  and 
some  of  them  not  the  best  type  of  American  articles 
at  that.  It  was  hard  to  find  indications  of  British 
trading,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  here  was  a  field 
for  British  enterprise,  and  that  with  the  easing  of 
shipping  difficulties,  which  were  then  tying  up  New- 
foundland's commerce,  Britain  and  Newfoundland 
would  both  benefit  by  a  vigorous  trade  policy.  New- 
foundlanders seemed  anxious  to  get  British  goods, 
and,  as  they  pointed  out,  the  rate  of  exchange  was 
all  in  their  favour. 

Through  Water  Street  passes  a  medley  of  vehicles; 


Newfoundland  1 5 

the  bumpy  electric  trams,  horse  carts  that  look  like 
those  tent  poles  the  Indians  trail  behind  them  put  on 
wheels,  spidery  buggies,  or  "  rigs,"  solid-wheeled 
country  carts,  and  the  latest  makes  in  automobiles. 

The  automobiles  astonish  one,  both  in  their  in- 
ordinate number  and  their  up-to-dateness.  There 
seemed,  if  anything,  too  many  cars  for  the  town,  but 
then  that  was  only  because  we  are  new  to  the  West- 
ern Continent,  where  the  automobile  is  as  everyday 
a  thing  as  the  telephone.  All  the  cars  are  Ahierican, 
and  to  the  Newfoundlander  they  are  things  of  pride, 
since  they  show  how  the  modern  spirit  of  the  Colony 
triumphs  over  sea  freight  and  heavy  import  duty. 
Motor-cars  and  electric  lighting  in  a  lavish  fashion 
that  Britain  does  not  know,  form  the  modern  feat- 
ures of  St.  John's. 

When  the  two  warships  steamed  through  the  Nar- 
rows into  the  harbour,  St.  John's,  within  its  hills, 
was  looking  its  best  under  radiant  sunlight.  The 
fishermen's  'huts  clinging  to  the  rocky  crevices  of  the 
harbour  entrance  on  thousands  of  spidery  legs,  let 
crackers  off  to  the  passing  ships  and  fluttered  a  mist 
of  flags.  Flags  shone  with  vivid  splashes  of  pigment 
from  the  water's  edge,  where  a  great  five-masted 
schooner,  barques  engaged  in  the  South  American 
trade,  a  liner  and  a  score  of  vessels  had  dressed  ships, 
up  all  the  tiers  of  houses  to  where  strings  of  flags 
swung  between  the  towers  of  the  cathedral. 

From  the  wharves  a  number  of  gnat-like  gasolene 
launches,  gay  with  flags,  pushed  off  to  flutter  about 
both  cruisers  until  they  came  to  anchor.  From  one 
of  the  quays  signal  guns  were  fired,  and  the  brazen 


i6    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

and  inordinate  hangings  of  his  Royal  salute  echoed 
and  re-echoed  in  uncanny  fashion  among  the  hills 
that  hem  the  town,  so  that  when  the  warships  joined 
in,  the  whole  cup  of  the  harbour  was  filled  with  the 
hammerings  of  explosions  overlapping  explosions, 
until  the  air  seemed  made  of  nothing  else. 

On  the  big  stacks  of  Newfoundland  lumber  at  the 
harbour-side,  on  the  quays,  on  the  freight  sheds  and 
on  the  roofs  of  buildings,  Newfoundland  people, 
who,  like  the  weather,  were  giving  the  lie  to  the 
prophets,  crowded  to  see  the  Prince  arrive.  He 
came  from  Dragon  in  the  Royal  barge  in  the  wake 
of  the  Dauntless'  launch,  which  was  having  a  wor- 
ried moment  in  "  shooing  "  off  the  eager  gasolene 
boats,  crowdi^ig  in,  in  defiance  of  all  regulations,  to 
get  a  good  view. 

There  was  no  doubt  about  the  warmth  of  the  wel- 
come. It  was  a  characteristic  Newfoundland  crowd. 
Teamsters  in  working  overalls,  fishermen  in  great  sea 
boots  and  oilskins,  girls  garbed  in  the  smartness  of 
New  York,  whose  comely  faces  and  beautiful  com- 
plexions were  of  Ireland,  though  there  was  here  and 
there  a  flash  of  French  blood  in  the  grace  of  their 
youth,  little  boys  willing  to  defy  the  law  and  climb 
railings  in  order  to  get  a  "  close  up  "  photograph, 
youths  in  bubble-toed  boots  —  all  proved  that  their 
dourness  was  not  an  emotion  for  state  occasions,  and 
that  they  could  siiow  themselves  as  they  really  were, 
as  gene.rous  and  as  loyal  as  any  people  within  the 
Empire. 

The  Prince  was  received  on  the  jetty  by  the  Gov- 
ernor and  the  members  of  the  legislature.     With 


Newfoundland  17 

them  was  a  guard  of  honour  of  seamen,  all  of  them 
Newfoundland  fishermen  who  had  served  in  various 
British  warships  throughout  the  war.  There  was  a 
contingent  from  the  Newfoundland  Regiment  also, 
stocky  men  who  had  fought  magnificently  through 
the  grim  battles  in  France,  and  on  the  Somme  had 
done  so  excellently  that  the  n-ame  of  their  greatest 
battle,  Gueudecourt,  has  become  part  of  the  Colony's 
everyday  history,  and  is  to  be  found  inscribed  on  the 
postage  stamps  under  the  picture  of  the  caribou 
which  is  the  national  emblem. 

The  Prince's  passage  through  the  streets  was  a 
stirring  one.  There  were  no  soldiers  guarding  the 
route  through  Water  Street  and  up  the  high,  steep 
hills  to  Government  House,  and  the  eager  crowd 
pressed  about  the  carriage  in  such  ardour  that  its 
pace  had  to  be  slowed  to  a  walk.  At  that  pace  it 
moved  through  the  streets,  a  greater  portion  of  the 
active  population  keeping  pace  with  it,  turning  them- 
selves into  a  guard  of  honour,  walking  as  the  horses 
walked,  and,  if  they  did  break  into  a  trot,  trotting 
with  them. 

The  route  lay  under  many  really  beautiful  arches, 
some  castles  with  towers  and  machicolations  sheafed 
in  the  sweet-smelling  spruce;  others  constructed  en- 
tirely from  fish  boxes  and  barrels,  with  men  on  them, 
working  and  packing  the  cod;  others  were  hung  with 
the  splendid  fur,  feathers  and  antlers  of  Newfound- 
land hunting. 

Through  that  day  and  until  midday  of  the  next, 
lively  crowds  followed  every  movement  of  the 
"  dandy  feller,"  swopping  opinions  as  to  his  charm, 


i8    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

pi— ^'l'"  I  I  ■■!■■       I  ■!     I    I  !■■■■-■■     I  I         I  IPIMI.IIIII  ■!—  I         I  11  ■■  ^^^I^^M^— 

and  his  smile,  his  youthfulness  and  his  shyness. 
They  compared  him  with  his  grandfather  who  had 
visited  St.  John's  fifty-nine  years  ago,  and  made  a 
point  of  mentioning  that  he  was  to  sleep  in  the  very 
bedroom  his  grandfather  had  used. 

There  was  the  usual  heavy  program,  an  official 
lunch,  the  review  of  war  veterans,  a  visit  to  the 
streets  when  the  lavish  electric  light  had  been 
switched  into  the  beautiful  illuminations,  when  the 
two  cruisers  were  mirrored  in  the  harbour  waters  in 
an  outline  of  electric  lights,  and  when  on  the  ring 
of  hill-tops  red  beacons  were  flaring  in  his  honour. 
There  was  a  dance,  with  his  lucky  partners  sure  of 
photographic  fame  in  the  local  papers  of  tomorrow, 
and  then  in  the  morning,  medal  giving,  a  peep  at  the 
annual  regatta,  famous  in  local  history,  on  lovely 
Quidividi  Lake  among  the  hills,  and  then,  all  too 
soon  for  Newfoundland,  his  departure  to  New 
Brunswick. 

There  was  no  doubt  at  all  as  to  the  Impression  he 
made.  The  visit  that  might  have  been  formal  was 
in  actuality  an  affair  of  spontaneous  affection. 
There  was  a  friendliness  and  warmth  in  the  welcome 
that  quite  defies  description.  His  own  unaffected 
pleasure  in  the  greeting;  his  eagerness  to  meet  every- 
body, not  the  few,  but  the  ordinary,  everyday  people 
as  much  as  the  notabilities,  his  lack  of  affectation,  and 
his  obvious  enjoyment  of  all  that  was  happening, 
placed  the  Prince  and  the  people,  welcoming  him, 
immediately  on  a  footing  of  intimacy.  His  tour  had 
begun  in  the  air  of  triumph  which  we  were  to  find 
everywhere  in  his  passage  across  the  Continent. 


CHAPTER  II 

ST.   JOHN,    NEW   BRUNSWICK 


WHEN  one  talks  to  a  citizen  of  St.  John, 
New  Brunswick,  one  has  an  impression 
that  his  city  is  burnt  down  every  half 
century  or  so  in  order  that  he  and  his  neighbours 
might  build  it  up  very  much  better. 

This  is  no  doubt  an  inaccurate  impression,  but 
when  I  had  listened  to  various  brisk  people  telling 
me  about  the  fires  —  the  devastating  one  of  1877, 
and  the  minor  ones  of  a  variety  of  dates  —  and  the 
improvements  St.  John  has  been  able  to  accomplish 
after  them;  and  when  I  had  seen  the  city  itself,  I 
must  confess  I  had  a  sneaking  feeling  that  Providence 
had  deliberately  managed  these  things  so  that  a 
lively,  vigorous  and  up-to-date  folk  should  have 
every  opportunity  of  reconstructing  their  city  accord- 
ing to  the  modernity  of  their  minds  and  status. 

The  vigorousness  of  St.  John  is  so  definite  that  it 
got  into  our  bones  though  our  visit  was  but  one  of 
hours.  St.  Jrohn,  for  us,  represented  an  extraordi- 
nary hustle.  We  arrived  on  the  morning  of  Friday, 
August  15,  after  the  one  night  when  the  sea  had  not 
been  altogether  our  friend;  when  the  going  had  been 
*'  awfully  kinky  "  (as  the  seasick  one  of  our  party 
put  it),  and  the  spiral  motif  in  the  Dauntless'  ward- 
room had  been  disturbing  at  meals. 

19 


20    Westward  with  the  Fritice  of  Wales 

We  arrived,  moreover,  on  a  wet  day,  were 
whisked  by  launch  to  the  quayside  and  plunged  at 
once  into  the  company  of  the  Governor-General, 
Prime  Minister,  Canadian  legislators,  Guards  of 
Honour,  brigades  of  "  movie  "  men,  crowds  of  sing- 
ing children  and  Canada  in  the  mass  determined  to 
make  the  most  of  the  moment.  From  this  we  were 
hurled  headlong  in  the  Canadian  manner,  in  cars 
through  streets  of  more  people  and  more  children 
to  functions  where  the  whole  breezy  business  was 
repeated  again  with  infinite  zest. 

It  was  the  day  of  our  first  impact  with  the  novelty 
and  bigness  of  Canada,  and  it  was  a  trifle  dizzying. 
It  was  a  day  on  which  we  encountered  so  much  that 
was  new,  and  yet  it  was  a  day  done  in  the  "  movie  " 
manner,  with  all  the  sensations  definite  but  digested 
in  a  hurry. 

It  was  the  day  on  which  we  first  encountered  the 
big  Canadian  crowd;  that  hearty,  democratic 
crowd,  so  scornful  of  routine  and  policemen  and 
methods  of  decorum,  yet  so  generous  in  its  feeling, 
so  good-natured  and  so  entirely  reliable  in  its  sense 
of  self-discipline. 

It  was  the  day  when  we  gathered  our  first  impres- 
sions of  Canadian  city  life,  saw  (and  perhaps  we 
found  them  a  little  unexpected)  Canada's  fine  shops 
and  the  beautiful  things  in  them,  saw  Canada's  beau- 
tiful women  and  the  smart  clothes  they  wore,  saw  the 
evidence  of  the  modernity  of  Canada's  business 
methods,  and  the  comeliness  of  the  suburbs  in  which 
Canada  lived. 

It  was  the  day  when  we  first  encountered  a  Cana- 


S/.  John,  New  Brunswick  21 


dian  meal,  glanced  with  awe  at  those  marble  mosaic 
temples  of  the  head,  the  barbers'  shops,  looked  into 
our  first  Shoe  Shine  Parlour,  fell  under  the  seduc- 
tion of  our  first  Canadian  ice,  and  finally  surrendered 
ourselves  to  the  infinite  and  efficient  comfort  of  a 
Canadian  Railway. 

All  this  was  accomplished  allegro  di  molto.  We 
had  to  assimilate  it  all  in  a  bunch  of  hurried  hours 
between  our  first  landing  and  the  collecting  and 
stowing  of  our  suitcases  in  the  sleeping  car  of  the 
National  Railway  Special  that  had  been  placed  at 
the  service  of  the  newspaper  men.  It  was  a  crowded 
day,  but  it  was  thrilling  and  it  remains  unforgettable. 


II 

St.  John,  New  Brunswick,  is  many  things.  It  is 
the  historic  spot  where  that  splendid  figure  in 
Canada's  story,  the  great  Champlain,  and  De  Monts, 
came  in  the  dim  days  of  the  West's  beginning,  to  rear 
a  new  city  in  a  new  wild  continent,  and  called  it  after 
the  saint  on  whose  day  they  first  made  their  land- 
ing. 

It  is  commerce  if  that  is  the  way  you  look  at 
things;  an  ice-free  port,  tingling  with  every  modern 
activity,  where  lumber  and  grain  and  fruit  and  all 
the  riches  of  Canada  are  swung  to  Europe  and  the 
West  Indies,  and  scores  of  ports  about  the  world, 
and  where,  when  winter  grips  the  immense  St.  Law- 
rence, passengers  can  slip,  free  of  the  ice,  to  the 
ocean  tracts. 

It  is  the  gate  of  pleasure.     The  entry  port  where 


22    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

the  sportsman  and  the  holiday  maker  from  America 
or  Europe  can  start  for  the  fine  fishing  streams, 
where  salmon  and  trout  are  kings;  for  the  spruce 
forests,  where  moose  and  caribou,  deer  and  even 
bear  can  be  shot,  and  where  wild  duck  and  the 
Canadian  partridge  —  which  is  really  grouse  —  are 
commonplace;  or  to  the  many  fine  holiday  towns  of 
the  maritime  provinces,  where  golf  and  good  scenery 
go  hand  in  hand. 

It  is  romance.  Here  was  one  of  the  wrestling- 
points  where  France  fought  Britain  for  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  Americas;  where,  even,  France  fought 
France,  as  one  adventurer  strove  to  wrest  the  riches 
of  the  fur  trade  from  another.  Somewhere  on  one 
of  the  ridgy  shoulders  of  its  grey-rock  peninsula  the 
wife  of  De  Monts,  in  (his  absence,  held  the  fort 
against  Charnisay,  only  to  have  her  garrison  mas- 
sacred before  her  eyes,  when  on  promise  of  honour- 
able terms,  she  opened  her  gates.  Somewhere  on 
another  gruff  shoulder  of  the  rock  was  the  fort  that 
Charnisay  built  from  the  ruins  of  the  first,  and 
where  De  Monts  ultimately  came  into  his  own  again 
by  marrying  his  conqueror's  widow. 

At  the  wharves  of  St.  John  to-day  lie  the  ships 
that  are  heirs  to  the  Boston  clippers,  links  in  a  past 
of  tragedy  and  trade,  when  New  England  men  did 
business  or  battle  across  the  waters  of  Fundy  Bay, 
first  as  Englishmen  with  the  French  and  then  as 
independent  Americans  with  the  English. 

It  was  these  English,  the  United  Loyalists,  who 
came  out  of  America  in  1783,  during  the  War  of 
Independence,  or  who  were  forced  to  come  out  later, 


SL  John,  New  Brunswick  23 

who  really  founded  St.  John  as  it  stands  to-day. 
And  it  was  the  Loyalists  with  their  courage,  tena- 
city, and  virility  who,  with  the  sturdy  French  settlers 
of  the  old  regime,  built  up  the  fortune  and  the  spirit 
of  St.  John  as  it  exists  now. 

It  is  a  city  of  quality.  It  has  a  vivid  air  of  attrac- 
tiveness and  prosperity.  It  is  history  and  romance 
rounded  off  with  the  grain  elevator. 


Ill 

St.  John,  on  August  15,  was  perfectly  aware  of  the 
office  it  had  to  fulfil.  It  was  on  its  quays  that  the 
Prince  was  first  to  set  foot  on  Canadian  soil,  and  St. 
John  had  made  up  its  mind  that  that  occasion  should 
be  handled  in  a  befitting  manner. 

True,  it  did  not  manage  its  weather  quite  so  neatly 
as  St.  John's,  Newfoundland,  but  on  the  other  hand 
it  refused  to  allow  the  rain  to  interfere  with  its  plans 
or  with  its  warmth  of  welcome. 

The  entrance  of  the  two  light  cruisers  from  the 
drenched,  broM^n-grey  Bay  of  Fundy,  past  the  rather 
militaristic  looking  Partridge  Island,  was  the  signal 
for  immediate  attention. 

The  inevitable  motor  launches  came  out  by  scores, 
and  with  them  high-backed  tugs;  launches  and  tugs 
were  covered  with  flags  and  people  bearing  flags, 
both  flags  and  people  being  damp  but  enthusiastic. 

The  long  harbour  itself  gives  a  sense  of  pit-like 
depth.  Not  only  are  the  black  quay  walls  extremely 
high,  to  accommodate  a  tide  that  has  a  drop  of 
twenty-five   feet,  but  on   the   quays   themselves   are 


24    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

piled  immense  grain  elevators,  with  "  Welcome  " 
written  in  giant  letters  on  their  towering  sides,  coal- 
loading  sheds  with  their  lattice  derrick  arms  that 
always  seem  to  have  been  constructed  by  Mr.  Wells's 
Martians,  and  great  freight  buildings. 

Round  this  huge,  black  amphitheatre  of  welcome, 
on  whose  sea-floor  was  the  Dragon  and  ourselves, 
people  collected  thickly,  and  everywhere  there  was 
the  glint  of  flags  through  the  rain. 

But  even  the  crowds  about  the  harbour  did  not 
give  a  hint  of  the  vast  throng  waiting  on  the  land- 
ing-stage. Hidden  away  from  the  water  by  siheds, 
this  very  cheery  crush  filled  the  wide,  free  space  of 
the  harbour  approach.  Their  numbers  and  eager- 
ness had  already  proved  the  mutability  of  the  police 
force,  and  volunteers  in  khaki  were  enrolled  by  the 
score  in  order  to  keep  them  back. 

Almost  as  imposing  as  the  throng  were  the  photo- 
graphers; not  a  few  photographers,  but  a  battalion 
of  them,  running  about  with  that  feverish  energy 
Press-photographers  alone  possess,  and  climbing  on 
to  walls  and  roofs  as  though  impelled  by  some  divine, 
inner  instinct  towards  positions  from  which  the 
Prince  of  Wales  could  be  shown  to  the  world  at 
unique  and  astounding  angles. 

Movie  men  and  "  stills  "  men,  the  former  the  real 
workers  of  the  world,  for  they  carry  their  heavy 
machines  with  all  the  energy  of  Lewis  gunners, 
nipped  about,  formed  in  groups  ready  to  shoot 
notabilities,  mixed  themselves  up  in  the  guard  of 
honour  until  chased  away  by  sergeants,  and  in  the 
end  forming  up  in  a  solid  phalanx  that  almost  ob- 


I 


Si.  John,  New  Brunswick  25 

literated  Canada,  to  snap  His  Royal  Highness  as  he 
came  up  the  covered  way  from  the  wharf. 

He  had  been  received  on  the  wharf  by  the  Gover- 
nor-General of  Canada,  the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  a 
heavy  figure,  whose  very  top  hat  seemed  to  have  an 
air  of  brooding  meditation  In  keeping  with  his  per- 
sonality; the  Premier  of  Canada,  Sir  Robert  Bor- 
den, an  individuality  of  almost  active  reticence,  a 
man  who  somehow  seemed  to  get  all  the  mass  and 
weight  of  Canada  into  a  mere  "How  d'y'  do?" 
And  with  these  were  many  of  the  leaders,  political, 
commercial  and  social,  of  the  Dominion,  come  to- 
gether to  join  in  Canada's  first  greeting. 

It  was  raining,  but  there  was  no  dampening  that 
magnificent  welcome.  The  meeting  with  Dominion 
leaders  down  by  the  waterside  had  been  formal. 
The  meeting  between  the  Prince  and  the  mass  of 
people  in  the  big,  open  space  was  the  real  welcome. 
Here,  as  In  every  other  town  In  the  Dominion,  the 
formal  side  of  the  visit  was  entirely  swamped  by  the 
human.  The  people  themselves  made  this  welcome 
splendid  and  overwhelming,  elevating  it  to  that 
plane  of  Intimacy  and  affection  that  made  the 
tour  different  from  anything  that  had  been  conceived 
before. 

After  facing  this  superb  welcome,  which  obviously 
moved  him  a  great  deal,  the  Prince  passed  to  an- 
other side  of  the  square,  to  where  St.  John  had 
added  a  touch  of  youth,  prettiness  and  novelty  to 
the  loyalty  of  her  greeting. 

In  a  big  stand  there  were  massed  several  thou- 
sand school  children,  all  of  them  In  white,  all  of  them 


26    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 


carrying  small  flags,  all  of  them  thoroughly  wet,  and 
all  of  them  enthusiastic  beyond  discipline. 

They  had  carried  the  first  outburst  of  cheering 
well  beyond  the  capacity  of  mere  adult  lungs  and 
endurance,  and  as  they  cheered  without  break,  they 
waved  their  flags,  so  that  the  whole  stand  seemed 
a  big  fire,  over  which  a  multitude  of  tiny  red,  white 
and  blue  flames  unceasingly  played.  This  mass  flag- 
wagging  is  a  great  feature  of  Western  welcomes, 
and  a  most  effective  one.  It  enables  the  hands  to 
join  in  an  enthusiasm  which  the  Canadian  does  not 
seem  to  be  sufliciently  able  to  express  by  his  cheering 
and  whistling.  Really  ardent  Canadians  put  a  rattle 
into  their  empty  left  hands,  and  express  their  joy 
of  welcome  with  the  maximum  of  noise  as  well  as 
activity. 

Only  on  the  approach  of  His  Royal  Highness  did 
these  delightful  children  staunch  their  cheering,  and 
that  merely  because  they  wanted  their  lungs  to  sing. 

They  transferred  their  enthusiasm  into  their  songs. 
Their  sharp,  high  singing,  with  a  touch  of  the  nasal 
in  it,  and  a  Canadian  accenting  of  "  r's,"  introduced 
us  to  the  splendid  and  inevitable  hymns  —  begin- 
ning with  "  O  Canada  "  and  ending  with  "  God 
Bless  the  Prince  of  Wales  " —  that  we  were  to  hear 
across  the  breadth  of  the  Dominion  and  back  again. 

On  the  stage  below  this  great  flower-box  of  infants 
was  a  number  of  girls;  each  of  them,  It  seemed,  a 
princess  of  her  race,  having  the  wonderful  poise,  the 
fine  skin,  and  the  bright  comeliness  that  make  Cana- 
dian women  so  individual  in  their  beauty. 

These  girls  wore  bright,  symbolical  dresses,  and 


I 


St.  John^  New  Brunswick  27 

each  carried  a  shield  bearing  the  arms  and  the  name 
of  the  province  of  the  Dominion  of  Canada  she 
represented.  It  was  a  pageant  of  greeting  in  which, 
advancing  in  pairs,  all  the  provinces  the  Prince  was 
to  visit  in  the  next  few  months  came  forward  to 
bid  him  welcome  at  the  moment  he  set  foot  in  the 
Dominion. 

Curtsying  to  the  Prince,  the  girls  fell  back  and 
formed  a  most  attractive  tableau.  It  was  a  delight- 
ful picture,  delightfully  carried  out,  and  there  was 
no  doubt  about  the  Prince's  pleasure. 

While  His  Royal  Highness  witnessed  this 
spectacle  and  listened  to  the  singing  of  the  kiddies, 
the  crowd,  vanquishing  police  and  boy  scouts  and 
khaki,  flooded  over  the  open  space  and  gathered 
about  him.  It  was  a  scene  we  were  to  see  repeated 
almost  daily  during  the  trip. 

Without  police  protection,  and,  what  is  more, 
without  needing  it,  the  Prince  stood  in  the  centre  of 
a  homely  crowd,  rubbing  shoulders  with  it,  becom- 
ing an  almost  indistinguishable  part  of  it,  save  for  the 
fact  that  its  various  members  found  it  an  opportunity 
to  shake  hands  with  him. 

It  was  a  state  of  things  a  trifle  strange  to  Britons. 
It  would  probably  have  seemed  little  less  than  an- 
archy to  a  chief  of  British  police,  yet  one  was  im- 
mensely impressed  by  it.  It  had  all  the  intimacy  of 
a  gathering  of  friends.  And  the  Prince  was  as  na- 
tural a  part  of  that  genial  and  informal  crowd  as  any 
Canadian. 

The  crowd  shared  his  amusement  at  the  strenuous 
work  of  the  camera  men,  who  wormed  their  way 


28    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

through  the  masses  of  people  with  their  terrible 
earnestness,  dogged  his  steps  whenever  he  ventured 
to  move  a  yard,  and  who  seemed  to  feel  that  the 
reason  he  stopped  to  make  speeches  was  that  they 
should  be  able  to  get  a  steady,  three-quarter  face 
snap  of  him  at  a  distance  of  two  feet. 

When  the  Prince  slyly  hinted  to  a  photographer 
that,  really,  the  most  important  and  newsy  part  of 
the  function  was  the  massed  battalion  of  camera 
men,  and  that  actually  they  were  the  people  who 
should  be  photographed  and  not  him,  the  crowd 
shared  the  joke  with  him. 

Prince  and  people  were  all  part  of  one  democracy, 
the  real  democracy  that  never  thinks  about  democ- 
racy, but  simply  acts  humanly  and  naturally  in  hu- 
man and  natural  affairs. 

"  He'll  do,"  said  one  man.  "  Why  —  he's  just  a 
Canadian  after  all." 


IV 

The  city  had  made  itself  attractive  for  the  commg 
of  the  Prince.  In  the  fine  and  broad  King  Street 
up  which  he  drove  to  fulfil  the  many  functions  of  the 
day,  the  handsome  commercial  buildings  were  bright 
with  flags  and  hung  with  the  spruce  branches  that 
individuahze  Canadian  decorations.  Turreted 
arches  of  spruce,  and  banners  of  welcome  strung 
riffht  across  the  street,  entered  into  the  scheme. 

King  Street  is  a  brave  avenue  sweeping  up  hill 
from  the  very  edge  of  the  harbour  water.  Here  the 
Market  Slip,  the  old  landing-place  of  the  Loyalists, 


S/.  John,  New  Bnmswick  29 

thrusts  into  the  very  heart  of  the  city  and  brings  the 
shipping  to  the  front  doors  of  the  houses.  In  the 
big  triangular  space  about  it  gather  the  carters  with 
their  "  slovens,"  curious  square  carts,  hung  so  low 
that  their  floor  boa»rds  are  but  a  few  inches  from  the 
ground. 

In  King  Street  one  can  see  the  life  and  novelty  of 
the  town.  In  it  are  the  hotels,  in  the  vast  windows 
of  which  people,  involved  in  the  ritual  of  chewing 
gum,  sit  as  though  on  a  verandah,  and  contemplate 
the  passing  world  —  it  is  a  solemn  moment,  that 
first  encounter  through  plate  glass,  of  a  row  of 
Buddhas,  with  gently-moving  jaws.  Although  most 
Canadian  cities  boast  big  hotels  of  modern  type,  the 
old  type,  with  the  big  windows,  are  everywhere,  to 
lend  a  peculiar  individuality  to  the  streets. 

In  King  Street  are  the  smart  shops,  showing 
jewellery,  furs,  millinery  and  the  rest,  of  a  design 
and  quality  equal  to  anything  in  London  and  New 
York.  The  Canadians  have  a  particular  passion  for 
silver  of  good  design,  and  the  display  in  the  shops  is 
a  thing  that  impresses. 

Here,  too,  are  the  Boot-Shine  Parlours,  the  Candy 
Stores,  the  temples  of  the  Barbers,  and  those  won- 
drous purveyors  of  universal  trivia,  the  Drug  Stores. 

In  America,  boot  (only  it  is  called  a  shoe)  shining 
is  a  special  rite,  and  it  is  performed  outside  the  home 
in  a  "  Parlour."  These  Parlours  are  often  elab- 
orate affairs,  attached  to  a  tobacconist,  or  to  the 
vendor  of  American  magazines,  who  is  also  a  tobac- 
conist; but  quite  frequently  they  exist  alone  on  their 
own  profits.     In  these  Parlours,  and  in  an  armchair 


30    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

on  a  raised  throne,  one  sits  while  an  expert  with 
•brushes,  polish,  rags  and  secret  varnishes,  performs 
miracles  on  one's  shoes.  It  is  an  art  that  justifies 
itself,  but  the  fact  that  so  many  Canadian  roads  off 
the  main  streets  are  mere  strips  of  dusty  unmetalled 
nature  explains  the  necessity  of  so  many  shops  de- 
voted to  this  business;  that,  and  the  dearth  and  in- 
dependence of  servants. 

The  Candy  Stores  are  bright  and  elaborate  places 
also.  There  are  so  many  of  them,  and  their  wares 
are  so  ingenious  and  varied,  that  one  almost  fancies 
that  eating  candy  is  one  of  the  national  industries. 
All  candy  stores  have  an  ice  cream  soda  section, 
where  cream  ices  of  an  amazing  virtuosity  and  num- 
ber, and  called,  for  some  reason  I  have  not  dis- 
covered, "  Sundaes,"  can  be  had. 

The  Drug  Stores  have  an  ice  cream  section,  al- 
ways; small  and  pretty  ante-rooms,  with  a  chintz  air 
and  chintz  chairs,  where  these  delightful  ices,  com- 
pounded of  cream  and  all  kinds  of  fruits  or  syrups, 
and  dubbed  with  romantic  names,  such  as  "  Angel's 
Sigh,"  and  "  Over  the  Top,"  are  absorbed  by  citi- 
zens with  a  regularity  that  seems  to  point  to  a  de- 
finite racial  impulse. 

One  expects  to  find  an  ice  cream  counter  in  a  drug 
store,  because  one  comes  to  realize  that  there  is 
little  within  the  range  of  human  possibility  that  the 
drug  store  does  not  sell.  It  sells  soap  and  tooth- 
paste and  drugs,  as  one  would  expect;  it  sells  maga- 
zines and  fountain-pens  and  ink,  cameras  and  clocks. 
It  sells  sweets  and  walking-sticks  and  postage  stamps 
and  stationery.     It  sells  everything.     It  even  sells 


SL  John,  New  Brunswick  31 

whiskey.  It  is,  indeed,  the  only  place  in  the  Conti- 
nent of  the  Dry  where  spirits  of  any  sort  can  be  ob- 
tained, not  freely,  of  course,  but  through  the  full 
ceremonial  of  the  law,  and  by  means  of  a  doctor's 
certificate. 

And  then  the  Barbers'  Temples.  When  I  talk  of 
barbers'  shops  as  temples,  I  speak  with  the  feeling 
of  awe  these  austere  and  airy  places  of  whiteness  and 
marble,  glass  and  mosaic,  silver  and  electricity  im- 
pressed me.  There  seems  to  be  something  measured 
and  profound  in  the  way  the  Canadian  goes  to  these 
conventicles,  in  the  frequency  of  his  going,  and  in 
the  solemnity  of  the  act  that  he  undergoes  when 
there. 

There  are  so  many  of  these  shops,  and  they  are 
always  so  crowded  that  it  seems  to  me  the  Canadian 
makes  his  attendance  on  the  barber,  not  an  accident, 
but  a  solemn  habit;  an  occasion  with  not  a  httle  ritual 
in  it.     And  the  barber  has  the  same  air. 

When  a  Canadian  puts  the  top  of  himself  into  the 
hands  of  the  barber,  he  gets,  not  a  hair-cutting,  but 
a  process.  He  is  placed  in  a  chair  of  leather  and 
electro-plate,  standing  well  out  to  the  middle  of  a 
pure  white  floor.  As  a  chair  it  is  the  kindlier 
brother  of  the  one  the  dentist  uses;  it  has  all  the 
tips,  tilts  and  abrupt  upheavals,  but  none  of  the 
other's  exactions. 

It  is  tipped  and  tilted  and  swung  hither  and  thither 
by  a  v/hite-vested  priest  as  he  goes  austerely  step 
by  step  through  a  definite  service  of  the  head.  It  is 
an  Intricate  formulary  that  includes  the  close  crop- 
ping of  the  temples,  shaving  behind  the  ears,  shaving 


32    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

the  back  of  the  neck  (unless  you  show  you  belong  to 
a  feebler  stock,  and  protest),  swathing  the  head 
in  hot  towels,  oil  shampooing,  massaging,  "  violet 
raying "  and  an  entire  orchestration  of  other 
methods  of  making  the  hair  worthy. 

And  the  barber  is  not  a  mere  human  being  with 
clippers.  He  is  a  hierophant  with  a  touch  of  dog- 
matic infallibility.  He  does  not  suggest,  "  Would 
you  like  a  scalping  massage,  sir?  I  recommend  it, 
.  .  ."  and  so  on;  he  tells  you  out  of  the  calm  cloud 
of  his  reticence:  "  I'm  going  to  give  you  a  Marsh- 
wort  Electrolysis,  and  after  that  Yellow  Cross 
Douch  for  that  nasty  nap  in  your  hair." 

It  takes  a  strong-willed  fellow  to  say  "  No  "  to 
that  attack  of  assertion,  especially  as  you  feel  that 
you  are  shattering  the  entire  tradition  of  Canada, 
where  the  whole  elaborate  process  is  just  an  ordi- 
nary hair-cut. 

The  barber  does  not  stop  at  the  head,  either.  At 
the  slightest  weakness  on  your  part,  he  beckons  from 
one  of  his  —  well  —  side  chapels,  a  brisk  and  im- 
perturbable manicurist.  There  are  manicurists  in 
all  barbers'  shops.  Like  the  barbers,  they  are  artists 
in  their  cult,  and  while  he  works  on  the  head  the 
manicurist  accomplishes  miracles  of  perfection  on  the 
nails,  with  scented  baths,  hot  swathings,  unguents, 
steel  weapons  and  orange  sticks. 

And  while  these  things  are  occurring  to  you,  you 
can  have  a  Shoe  Shine  pundit  from  another  corner, 
and  I  daresay  you  can  have  a  chiropodist  at  the 
same  time,  so  that  for  twenty  minutes  there  is  going 
on  about  your  body  a  feverish  concentration  of  ac- 


St.  John,  Nezv  Brunswick  33 

tlvlty  that  makes  even  Henry  Ford's  assembling  de- 
partment look  spiritless. 

King  Street  sweeps  broadly  uphill  to  King  Square, 
which  is  a  large  and  pleasant  garden,  merging  im- 
perceptibly into  the  old  graveyard,  the  grey  old 
headstones  of  which  add  serenity  to  the  charm  of 
the  park. 

The  Square  itself  seems  to  be  the  Harley  Street 
of  St.  John,  for  among  the  big  buildings,  and  the 
"  apartment  "  blocks,  which  are  really  flats,  I  came 
upon  the  plates  of  many  doctors,  who,  in  the  un- 
expected American  manner,  add  their  special  quali- 
fications under  their  name,  so  that  I  read: 

"  Dr.  John  X , 


Throat,  Ear  and  Nose.' 

The  streets  of  St.  John  lead  out  at  right-angles 
from  this  central  group  of  square  and  street,  for  this 
is  the  West,  where  the  parallel  road-making  of  effi- 
cient town-planning  reigns.  Some  of  these  streets 
are  carved  out  of  the  grim,  grey,  slaty  rock,  that 
even  now  crops  out  in  the  midst  of  the  stone  and 
brick  and  wood  of  human  effort,  to  show  upon  what 
stubborn  stuff  the  first  founders  had  to  build. 

In  the  residential  streets,  and  particularly  in  the 
suburbs,  the  homes  are  planned  charmingly.  The 
houses  are  of  brick  or  wood,  most  of  them  built  in 
the  Colonial  style,  and  all  pleasantly  gabled,  and  of 
a  bright  and  attractive  colour,  while  every  one  has 
the  deep  and  comely  porch,  upon  which  are  scattered 
rocking  and  easy  chairs,  and  even  settees. 


34    Westward  with  the  Frmce  of  Wales 

The  houses  are  surrounded  by  the  greenest  lawns, 
and  these  lawns  are  not  marred  by  walls  or  fences, 
but  run  right  down  to  the  curb,  with  but  a  strip  of 
sidewalk  for  pedestrians.  This  elimination  of  rail- 
ings is  a  thing  that  might  well  be  imitated  in  our 
country;  it  gives  the  residential  districts  a  pretty  and 
park-like  air  that  is  altogether  delightful. 

We  passed  through  miles  of  such  homes  in  a 
journey  round  the  deep  bay  of  the  harbour  to  the 
place  where  the  Dauntless,  dwarfed  by  the  high 
lock  walls,  lay  alongside  the  quay.  There  is  a  steam 
ferry  connecting  the  two  peninsulas  that  landlock 
the  harbour,  but  our  automobile  driver,  no  doubt, 
had  the  civic  spirit  and  wanted  to  show  us  both  the 
beauties  of  suburban  St.  John,  the  great  cantilever 
bridge  across  the  St.  John  river  and  the  famous 
Reversible  Falls. 

The  Reversible  Falls  are  at  the  mouth  of  the  St. 
John  river,  where  it  pushes  through  the  high  lime- 
stone cliffs  into  the  harbour.  At  low  tide  there  is 
the  authentic  fall,  as  the  river  cascades  over  the 
rock  in  a  drop  of  fifteen  feet,  but  the  extraordinarily 
tide  of  the  Bay  of  Fundy,  rising  ten  feet  above  the 
river  level,  actually  reverses  things,  and  forces  back 
the  flood  along  the  channel  with  some  turbulence. 

Our  journey  to  the  Dauntless  was  for  the  melan- 
choly business  of  collecting  our  luggage.  It  was 
here  we  left  the  cheery  comfort  of  the  ward  room 
for  the  definite  adventure  by  railway  across  the 
Continent.  Our  miraculously  erected  cabins,  the 
one  amidships,  and  the  two  that  sat  snugly  in  the 
aeroplane  hangar  beneath  the  bridge,  and  kept  com- 


Sf.  John,  New  Brunswick  35 

pany  with  the  song  of  the  siren  on  foggy  nights, 
were  needed  to  accommodate  the  Canadians  who 
were  to  accompany  the  Prince  by  sea  to  Halifax, 
then  on  to  Prince  Edward  Island,  and  finally  up  the 
St.  Lawrence  to  Quebec. 

It  was  a  reluctant  farewell  to  a  ship  we  had  found 
so  companionable  and  keen.  But  there  was  a  ray 
of  comfort  when  the  baggage  master  at  the  Canadian 
Railway  "  Dee-po  "  handed  us  a  little  bundle  of  lug- 
gage checks  for  the  mixed  assortment  of  trunks  and 
bags  we  had  dumped  into  his  room. 

It  had  been  an  endless  pile  of  luggage,  and  we 
apologized  for  it,  and  continued  to  say,  "  There's 
another  piece,  or  two,  or  more,  outside  on  the 
sloven.   .   .   ." 

But  the  length  of  that  luggage  queue  did  not  dis- 
snay  the  baggage  master.  He  counted  the  big  pieces 
calmly,  fixed  a  little  tag  on  each  piece,  tore  off  half 
of  each  tag  and  presented  it  to  us. 

"  Through  to  Halifax,"  he  said  dispassionately. 

"  We'll  be  along  this  evening,  when  the  special 
comes  in,  to  look  after  it " 

"  Look  after  it  in  the  baggage-room  at  Halifax," 
he  said,  without  excitement. 

*'  It'll  be  all  right?  "  we  asked,  in  our  English 
way. 

"  It's  checked  through  to  Halifax,"  he  insisted 
evenly,  as  though  that  explained  everything,  which, 
of  course,  it  did. 

"  And  our  suit-cases  over  there?  We  want  them 
on  the  train." 

*'  They'll  be  on  the  train,"  he  told  us,  with  his 


36    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

splendid  calm.  "  Your  car  porter  will  take  them  on 
the  train." 

"  We'll  want  them  for  tonight,  so  we  don't  want 
anything  to  go  astray,  you  know." 

"  They'll  be  under  the  seats  of  your  section,  wait- 
ing for  you  tonight.     The  porter  will  see  to  that." 

It  was  only  then  that  we  realized  that  we  had 
been  taken  under  control  by  Canadian  Railways, 
and  that  the  business  of  Canadian  Railways  is  to 
make  that  control  thorough,  and  to  eliminate  all 
worries,  of  which  baggage  is  the  worst,  for  their 
passengers  from  the  outset  to  the  end  of  the  journey. 

Our  baggage  being  checked  through  to  Halifax, 
awaited  our  arrival  serenely  at  Halifax.  If  it  had 
been  checked  through  to  Vancouver  or  Japan,  it 
would  have  awaited  our  arrival  with  equal  certainty. 
Our  suit-cases  were  under  our  seats  when  we  arrived 
at  the  car. 

Canadian  railways  do  not  let  passengers  down  on 
little  everyday  details  like  that. 


CHAPTER  III 

ON   THE   TRAIN    BETWEEN    ST.    JOHN    AND 

HALIFAX 


NEXT  morning  in  the  train  we  were 
awakened  to  an  unexpected  Sunday.  It 
was  not  an  ordinary  calm  Sunday,  but  a 
Sunday  with  a  hustle  on,  a  Canadian  Sunday. 
There  was  no  doubt  about  the  bells,  though  they 
were  ringing  with  remarkable  earnestness  in  their 
efforts  to  get  Canadians  into  church. 

Lying  in  our  sleeping  sections,  we  were  bewildered 
by  the  bells,  and  by  the  fact  that  by  human  calendar 
the  day  should  be  Saturday.  Then  we  raised  the 
little  blinds  that  hung  between  our  modesty  and  a 
world  of  passing  platforms,  and  found  that  we  were 
in  a  junction  (probably  Truro),  with  a  very  Satur- 
day air,  and  that  the  church  bells  were  on  engines. 

It  takes  some  time  for  the  Briton  to  become  ac- 
customed to  the  strangeness  of  bells  on  engines,  and 
the  fact,  that,  instead  of  whistling,  the  engines  also 
give  a  very  lifelike  imitation  of  a  liner's  siren.  The 
bells  are  tolled  when  entering  a  station,  or  approach- 
ing a  level  crossing,  and  so  on,  and  the  siren  note 
is,  I  think,  a  real  improvement  on  the  ear-splitting 
whistle  that  harrows  us  in  England. 

Our  first  night  on  the  Canadian  National  had  been 

37 


38    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

a  prophecy  of  the  many  comfortable  nights  we  were 
to  spend  on  Canadian  railways.  We  had  been  given 
an  ordinary  sleeping  car  of  the  long-distance  service, 
but  as  we  had  it  to  our  masculine  selves,  the  exercise 
of  getting  out  of  oHr  clothes  and  into  bed,  and  out 
of  our  bed  and  into  clothes,  was  an  ordinary  human 
accomplishment,  and  not  an  athletic  problem  tinged 
with  embarrassment. 

The  Canadian  sleeper  is  a  roomy  and  attractive 
Pullman,  with  wide  and  comfortable  back  to  back 
seats,  each  internal  pair  called  a  section.  At  night 
the  seats  are  pulled  together,  and  the  padding  at 
their  backs  pulled  down,  so  that  a  most  efficient  bed 
is  formed.  A  section  of  the  roof  lets  down,  resolv- 
ing itself  into  an  upper  bunk,  while  long  green  cur- 
tains from  roof  to  floor,  and  wood  panels  at  foot  and 
head  complete  the  privacy. 

In  these  sleepers  Canadians  make  the  week's 
journey  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  There 
is  no  separation  of  sexes,  and  a  woman  may  find  that 
she  is  sharing  a  section  with  a  strange  male  quite 
as  a  matter  of  course,  the  only  distinction  being  that 
the  chivalrous  Canadian  always  gives  up  the  bottom 
berth,  if  it  is  his,  to  the  lady,  and  climbs  to  the  top 
himself. 

In  these  circumstances,  to  remove  one's  clothes, 
and  particularly  that  part  that  proclaims  one's  gen- 
der, is  a  problem.  I  have  tried  it.  One  switches 
on  the  little  electric  reading  light,  climbs  into  the 
bunk,  buttons  up  the  green  curtains,  and  then  in  a 
space  a  trifle  larger  than  a  coffin  endeavours  to  re- 
move, and  place  tidily,   one's  clothes    (for  articles 


Between  St.  John  and  Halifax     39 

scattered  on  that  narrow  bunk  during  the  struggle 
mean  that  one  ends  by  becoming  simply  a  tangle 
of  garments). 

At  these  moments  one  realizes  that  hands,  arms, 
legs,  and  head  have  been  given  one  to  complicate 
things.  One  jams  them  against  everything.  And 
there  are  times,  too,  when  the  unpractised  Briton 
is  simply  baffled. 

They  tell  in  every  Canadian  train  the  tale  of  the 
Englishman  who  came  face  to  face  with  such  a  crisis. 
Having  removed  most  of  his  garments,  he  came  to 
that  point  where  the  ingenuity  of  human  nature 
seemed  to  fail.  He  pondered  it.  The  matter 
seemed  insuperable.  And  he  began  to  wonder  if. 
.  .  .  He  put  his  head  through  his  curtains  and 
shouted  along  the  crowded  —  and  mixed  —  green 
corridor  of  the  car: 

"  I  say,  porter,  does  one  take  off  one's  trousers  in 
this  train?" 

Most  of  the  railways,  the  Canadian  Pacific  cer- 
tainly, are  putting  on  compartment  cars;  that  is,  a 
car  made  up  of  roomy  private  sections,  holding  two 
berths.  On  most  sleepers,  too,  there  is  a  drawing- 
room  compartment  that  gives  the  same  privacy. 
These  are  both  comfortable  and  convenient,  for, 
apart  from  privacy,  the  passenger  does  not  have  to 
take  his  place  in  the  queue  waiting  to  wash  at  one 
of  the  three  basins  provided  in  the  little  section  at 
the  end  of  the  car  that  is  also  the  smoking-room. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  the  sleepers  are  any- 
thing but  comfortable;  they  are  so  comfortable  as 
to  make  travelling  in  them  ideal.     The  passenger, 


40    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

also,  has  the  run  of  the  train,  and  can  go  to  the  ob- 
servation car,  where  he  can  spend  his  time  in  an 
easy  chair,  looking  through  the  broad  windows  at 
the  scenery,  or  reading  one  of  the  many  magazines 
or  papers  the  train  provides;  or  he  can  write  his  let- 
ters on  train  paper  at  a  desk;  can  go  out  to  the  broad 
railed  platform  at  the  rear  of  the  car,  and  sit  and 
smoke,  and  see  Canada  unrolling  behind  him. 

And  at  the  appropriate  times  for  breakfast,  din- 
ner and  supper  —  that  is  the  Canadian  routine,  and 
there  is  no  tea  —  the  passenger  goes  to  the  diner 
and  has  a  meal  from  a  menu  that  would  make  the 
manager  of  many  a  London  hotel  feci  anxious  for 
his  reputation. 

II 

We  had  some  experience  of  the  lavishness  and 
variety  of  Canadian  meals  in  St.  John,  when  we  had 
ordered  what  would  have  been  an  ordinary  dinner 
in  London,  and  had  had  to  cry  ''  Kamerad!  "  after 
the  fish. 

The  first  Canadian  breakfast  we  had  on  the  Cana- 
dian National  was  of  the  same  order.  It  began,  in- 
evitably, with  ice-water.  Ice-water  is  the  thing 
that  waiters  fill  up  intervals  with.  Instead  of  paus- 
ing between  courses  for  the  usual  waiter's  medita- 
tion, they  make  instinctively  for  the  silver  ice-water 
jug,  and  fill  every  defenceless  glass.  Ice-water  is 
universal.  It  is  taken  before,  during  and  after  every 
meal,  and  there  are  ice-water  tanks  (and  paper 
cups)  on  every  railway  carriage  and  every  hotel. 
At  first  one  loathes  it,  and  it  seems  to  create  an 


Between  St.  John  and  Halifax      41 

unnatural  thirst,  but  the  habit  for  it  is  soon  attained. 

The  menu  for  breakfast  is  always  varied  and 
long  —  and  I  speak  not  merely  of  the  special  trains 
we  travelled  in,  for  it  was  the  same  on  ordinary 
passenger  trains.  One  does  not  face  a  table  d'hote 
meal  outside  of  which  there  is  no  alternative  but 
starvation,  but  one  is  given  the  choice  of  a  range 
of  dishes  for  any  of  the  three  meals  that  equals  the 
choice  offered  by  the  best  hotels  in  London. 

Breakfast  begins  with  fruit;  breakfast  is  not  break- 
fast in  the  American  continent  unless  it  begins  with 
fruit.  And  at  that  precise  time  breakfast  fruit  was 
blueberries.  Other  fruit  was  on  the  menu:  rasp- 
berries, melon,  grape-fruit,  canteloupe,  orange- 
slices,  orange  juice,  and  so  on;  but  to  avoid  blue- 
berries was  to  be  suspected  of  being  eccentric,  and 
even  an  alien  enemy. 

Blueberries  were  in  season.  Blueberries  and 
cream  were  being  eaten  at  breakfast  with  something 
more  than  mere  satisfaction  by  the  entire  Canadian 
nation.  Blueberries  were  being  consumed  with  a 
sort  of  patriotic  fervour,  for  blueberries  have  a  sig- 
nificance to  the  Canadian.  It  is  a  fruit  peculiarly 
his  own;  he  treats  it  as  a  sort  of  emblem,  he  waxes 
enthusiastic  over  it,  and  the  stranger  feels  that  if 
he  does  not  eat  it  (with  cream,  or  cooked  as  "  Deep 
Blueberry  Pie  "),  he  has  not  justified  his  journey  to 
the  Dominion.  Hint  that  it  is  merely  the  English 
bilberry  or  blaeberry,  or  whortleberry  and  —  but 
no  one  dares  hint  that.  The  blueberry  is  in  season. 
One  eats  it  with  cream,  and  it  is  ^A^rth  eating. 

You   may   follow  with   what   the   Canadian   calls 


42    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

"  oats,"  but  which  you  call  porridge,  or,  being  wiser 
since  the  dinner  at  St.  John,  you  go  straight  on  to 
hahbut  steak,  or  Gaspe  salmon,  or  trout,  or  Jack 
Frost  sausages,  or  just  bacon  and  eggs.  There  is  a 
range  that  would  have  pleased  you  In  an  hotel,  but 
which  fills  you  with  wonder  on  a  train. 

And  not  merely  the  range,  but  the  prodigality  of 
the  portions,  surprises.  Your  halibut  or  salmon  or 
trout  is  not  a  strip  that  seems  like  a  sample,  it  is  a 
solid  slice  of  exquisitely  cooked  fish  that  looks  dan- 
gerously near  a  full  pound,  and  all  the  portions  are 
on  the  same  scale,  so  that  you  soon  come  to  recognize 
that,  unless  you  ration  yourself  severely,  you  cannot 
possibly  hope  to  survive  against  this  Dominion  of 
Food. 

When  we  sat  down  to  that  breakfast  in  the  Cana- 
dian National  diner  I  think  we  realized  more  em- 
phatically than  we  had  through  the  whole  course  of 
our  reading  how  prodigal  and  rich  a  land  Canada 
was.  As  we  sat  at  our  meal  we  could  watch  from 
the  windows  the  unfolding  of  the  streams  and  the  in- 
numerable lovely  lakes,  that  expand  suddenly  out  of 
the  spruce  forests  that  clad  the  rocky  hills  and  the 
sharp  valleys  of  Nova   Scotia. 

We  could  see  the  homestead  clearings,  the  rich 
land  already  under  service  and  the  cattle  thereon. 
It  was  from  those  numberless  pebbly  rivers  and  lakes 
that  this  abundance  in  fish  came;  in  the  forests  was 
game,  caribou  and  moose  and  winged  game.  From 
the  cleared  land  came  the  wheat  and  the  other  grow- 
ing things  that  crowd  the  Canadian  table,  and  the 
herds  represented  the  meat,  and  the  unstinted  supply 


Between  St.  John  and  Halifax      43 

of  cream  and  milk  and  butter.  Even  the  half- 
cleared  land,  where  tree  stumps  and  bushes  still  held 
sway,  there  was  the  blueberry,  growing  with  the 
joyous  luxuriance  of  a  useful  weed. 

To  glance  out  of  the  window  was  to  realize  more 
than  this,  it  was  to  realize  that  in  spite  of  all  this 
luxuriance  the  land  was  yet  barely  scratched.  The 
homesteads  are  even  now  but  isolated  outposts  in 
the  undisciplined  wilderness,  and  when  we  realized 
that  this  was  but  a  section,  and  a  small  section  at 
that,  of  a  Dominion  stretching  thousands  of  miles 
between  us  and  the  Pacific,  and  how  many  thousand 
miles  on  the  line  North  to  South  we  could  not  com- 
pute, we  began  to  get  a  glimmer  of  the  immensity 
and  potentiality  of  the  land  we  had  just  entered. 

There  is  nothing  like  a  concrete  demonstration  to 
convince  the  mind,  and  I  recognize  it  was  that  heroic 
breakfast  undertaken  while  I  contemplated  the  heroic 
land  from  whence  it  had  come  that  brought  home  to 
me  with  a  sense  almost  of  shock  an  appreciation  of 
Canada's  greatness. 

By  the  time  I  had  arrived  at  Halifax,  and  had  a 
Canadian  National  Railway  lunch  (for  we  remained 
on  the  train  for  the  whole  of  our  stay  in  the  city) 
I  knew  I  was  to  face  immensities. 


CHAPTER  IV 

HALIFAX,    NOVA    SCOTIA 


THE  first  citizen  of  Halifax  to  recognize  the 
Prince  of  Wales  was  a  little  boy:  and  it 
was  worth  a  cool  twenty  cents  to  him. 

The  official  entry  of  His  Royal  Highness  into 
Hahfax  was  fixed  for  Monday,  August  i8th.  The 
Dragon  and  Dauntless,  however,  arrived  on  Sun- 
day, and  the  Prince  saw  in  the  free  day  an  opportun- 
ity for  getting  in  a  few  hours'  walking. 

He  landed  quietly,  and  with  his  camera  spent  some 
time  walking  through  and  snapping  the  interesting 
spots  in  the  city.  He  climbed  the  hill  to  where  the 
massive  and  slightly  melodramatic  citadel  that  his 
own  ancestor,  the  Duke  of  Kent,  had  built  on  the 
hill  dominates  the  city,  and  continued  from  there 
his  walk  through  the  tree- fringed  streets. 

At  the  very  toe  of  the  long  peninsula  upon  which 
Halifax  is  built  he  walked  through  Point  Pleasant, 
a  park  of  great,  and  untrammelled,  natural  beauty, 
thicketed  with  trees  through  which  he  could  catch 
many  vivid  and  beautiful  glimpses  of  the  intensely 
blue  harbour  water  beneath  the  slope. 

It  was  in  this  park  that  the  young  punter  pulled 
off  his  coup. 

He  was  one  of  a  number  of  kiddies  occupied  in 

44 


Halifax,  Nova  Scotia  45 


the  national  sport  of  Halifax  —  bathing.  He  and 
his  friends  spotted  the  Prince  and  his  party  before 
that  party  saw  them.  Being  a  person  of  acumen  the 
wise  kid  immediately  "  placed  "  His  Royal  Highness, 
and  saw  the  opportunity  for  financial  operations. 

"  Betcher  ten  cents  that's  the  Prince  of  Wales," 
he  said,  accommodating  the  whole  group,  where- 
upon the  inevitable  sceptic  retorted: 

"  Naw,  that  ain't  no  Prince.  Anyhow  he  doesn't 
come  till  tomorrow,  see." 

"  Is  the  Prince,  I  tell  you,"  insisted  the  plunger. 
"  And  see  here,  betcher  another  ten  cents  I  goes  and 
asks  him." 

The  second  as  well  as  the  first  bet  was  taken. 
And  both  were  won. 

This  is  not  the  only  story  connected  with  the  Sun- 
day stroll  of  the  Prince.  Another,  and  perhaps  a 
romantic  version  of  the  same  one,  was  that  it  was 
the  Prince  who  made  and  lost  the  bet.  He  was  said 
to  have  come  upon  not  boys  but  girls  bathing.  See- 
ing one  of  them  poised  skirted  and  stockinged,  for 
all  the  world  as  though  she  were  the  authentic  bath- 
ing girl  on  the  cover  of  an  American  magazine, 
ready  to  dive,  he  bet  her  a  cool  twenty  that  she  dare 
not  take  her  plunge  from  the  highest  board. 

This  story  may  be  true  or  it  may  be,  well,  Cana- 
dian. I  mean  by  that  it  may  be  one  of  the  jolly 
stories  that  Canadians  from  the  very  beginning  be- 
gan to  weave  about  the  personality  of  His  Royal 
Highness.  It  is,  indeed,  an  indication  of  his  popu- 
larity that  he  became  the  centre  of  a  host  of  yarns, 
true  or  apocryphal,  that  followed  him  and  accumu- 


46    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

lated  until  they  became  almost  a  saga  by  the  time  the 
tour  was  finished 

II 

In  this  short  stroll  the  Prince  saw  much  of  a  town 
that  is  certainly  worth  seeing. 

Halifax  on  the  first  impact  has  a  drab  air  that 
comes  as  a  shock  to  those  who  sail  through  the  sharp, 
green  hills  of  the  Narrows  and  see  the  hilly  peninsula 
on  which  the  town  is  built  hanging  graciously  over 
the  sparkling  blue  waters  of  one  of  the  finest  and 
greatest  harbours  in  the  world. 

From  the  water  the  multi-coloured  massing  of  the 
houses  is  broken  up  and  softened  by  the  vividness  of 
the  parks  and  the  green  billowing  of  the  trees  that 
line  most  of  the  streets.  Landing,  the  newcomer  is 
at  once  steeped  in  the  depressing  air  of  a  seaport 
town  that  has  not  troubled  to  keep  its  houses  in  the 
brightest  condition.  As  many  of  those  houses  are 
of  wood,  the  youthful  sparkle  of  which  vanishes  in 
the  maturity  of  ill-kept  paintwork,  the  first  impres- 
sion of  Halifax  is  actually  more  melancholy  than  it 
deserves  to  be. 

The  long  drive  through  Water  Street  from  the 
docks,  moreover,  merely  lands  one  into  a  business 
centre  where  the  effect  of  many  good  buildings  is 
spoilt  by  the  narrowness  of  the  streets.  Such  a  con- 
dition of  things  is  no  doubt  unavoidable  in  a  town 
that  Is  both  commercial  and  old,  but  those  who  only 
see  this  side  of  Halifax  had  better  appreciate  the 
fact  that  the  city  is  Canadian  and  new  also,  and  that 
there  are  residential  districts  that  are  as  comely  and 


Halifax,  Nova  Scotia  47 

as  up-to-date  as  anywhere  in  the  Western  Continent. 

Halifax  certainly  blends  history  and  business  in  a 
way  to  make  it  the  most  English  of  towns.  It  is  like 
nothing  so  much  as  a  seaport  in  the  North  of  Eng- 
land plus  a  Canadian  accent. 

There  is  the  same  packed  mass  movement  of  a 
lively  polyglot  people  through  the  streets.  There  is 
the  same  keen  appetite  for  living  that  sends  people 
out  of  doors  to  walk  in  contact  with  their  fellows 
under  the  light  of  the  many-globed  electric  standards 
that  line  the  sidewalk. 

There  is  the  same  air  of  bright  prosperity  in  the 
glowing  and  vivacious  light  of  the  fine  and  tasteful 
shops.  They  are  good  shops,  and  their  windows 
are  displayed  with  an  artistry  that  one  finds  is  char- 
acteristic throughout  Canada.  They  offer  the  latest 
and  smartest  ideas  in  blouses  and  gowns,  jewellery 
and  boots  and  cameras  —  I  should  like  to  find  out 
what  percentage  of  the  population  of  the  American 
Continent  does  not  use  a  camera  —  and  men's  shirt- 
ings, shirtings  that  one  views  with  awe,  shirtings  of 
silk  with  emotional  stripes  and  futuristic  designs, 
and  collars  to  match  the  shirts,  the  sort  of  shirts  that 
Solomon  in  all  his  glory  seems  to  have  designed  for 
festival  days. 

At  night,  certainly,  the  streets  of  Halifax  are 
bright  and  vivid,  and  the  people  in  them  good- 
humoured,  laughing  and  sturdy,  with  that  contempt 
of  affectation  that  is  characteristic  of  the  English 
north. 

The  bustle  and  vividness  as  well  as  the  greyness 
of  Halifax  lets  one  into  the  open  secret  that  it  is 


48    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

a  great  industrial  port  of  Canada,  and  an  all-the- 
year-round  port  at  that,  yet  it  is  the  greyness  and 
narrowness  of  the  streets  that  tells  you  that  Halifax 
is  also  history.  In  the  old  buildings,  and  their 
straggled  frontage,  is  written  the  fact  that  the  city 
grew  up  before  modernity  set  its  mark  on  Canada 
in  the  spacious  and  broad  planning  of  townships. 

It  was,  for  years,  the  garrison  of  Britain  in  the 
Americas.  Since  the  day  when  Cornwallis  landed 
in  1749  with  his  group  of  settlers  to  secure  the  key 
harbour  on  the  Eastern  seaboard  of  America  until 
the  Canadians  themselves  took  over  its  garrisoning, 
it  was  the  military  and  naval  base  of  our  forces. 
And  in  that  capacity  it  has  formed  part  of  the  stage 
setting  for  every  phase  of  the  Western  historical 
drama. 

It  was  the  rendezvous  of  Wolfe  before  Quebec;  it 
played  a  part  in  the  American  War  of  Independence; 
it  was  a  refuge  for  the  United  Empire  Loyalists; 
British  ships  used  it  as  a  base  in  the  war  of  1812; 
from  its  anchorage  the  bold  and  crafty  blockade 
runners  slipped  south  in  the  American  Civil  War, 
and  its  citizens  grew  fat  through  those  adventurous 
voyages.  It  has  been  the  host  of  generations  of 
great  seamen  from  Cook,  who  navigated  Wolfe's 
fleet  up  the  St.  Lawrence,  to  Nelson.  It  housed  the 
survivors  of  the  Titanic,  and  was  the  refuge  of  the 
Mauretania  when  the  beginning  of  the  Great  War 
found  her  on  the  high  seas.  It  has  had  German 
submarines  lying  off  the  Narrows,  so  close  that  it 
saw  torpedoed  crews  return  to  its  quays  only  an 
hour  or  so  after  their  ships  had  sailed. 


Halifax,  Nova  Scotia  49 

III 

The  Prince  of  Wales  was  himself  a  link  in  Hali- 
fax's history.  Not  merely  had  his  great-great 
grandfather,  the  Duke  of  Kent,  commanded  at  the 
Citadel,  but  when  he  landed  he  stepped  over  the  in- 
scribed stone  commemorating  the  landing  on  that 
spot  of  his  grandfather  on  July  30th,  i860,  and  his 
father  in  1901. 

His  Royal  Highness  made  his  official  landing  in 
the  Naval  Dockyard  on  the  morning  of  Monday, 
August  1 8th.  As  he  landed  he  was  saluted  by  the 
guns  of  three  nations,  for  two  French  war  sloops  and 
the  fine  Italian  battleship  Cavoin-,  which  had  come 
to  Halifax  to  be  present  during  his  visit,  joined  in 
when  the  guns  on  shore  and  on  the  British  warship 
saluted. 

At  the  landing  stage  the  reception  was  a  quiet 
one,  only  notabilities  and  guards  of  honour  occupy- 
ing the  Navy  Yard,  but  this  quietness  was  only  the 
prelude  to  a  day  of  sheer  hustle. 

The  crov/d  thickened  steadily  until  he  arrived  in 
the  heart  of  the  city,  when  it  resolved  itself  into  a 
jam  of  people  that  the  narrow  streets  failed  to  ac- 
commodate. This  crowd,  as  in  most  towns  of 
Canada,  believed  in  a  "  close  up  "  view.  Even  when 
there  is  plenty  of  space  the  onlookers  move  up  to 
the  centre  of  the  street,  allowing  a  passageway  of 
very  little  more  than  the  breadth  of  a  motor-car. 
Policemen  of  broad  and  indulgent  mind  are  present 
to  keep  the  crowd  in  order,  and  when  policemen 
give  out,  war  veterans  in  khaki  or  "  civvies  "  and 


50    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

boy  scouts  string  the  line,  but  ail  —  policemen, 
veterans  and  scouts  —  so  mixing  with  the  crowd  that 
they  become  an  indistinguishable  part  of  it,  so  that 
it  is  all  crowd,  cheery  and  friendly  and  most  inti- 
mate in  its  greeting.  That  was  the  air  of  the  Hali- 
fax crowd. 

It  always  seemed  to  me  that  after  the  roaring 
greeting  of  the  streets  the  formal  civic  addresses  of 
welcome  were  acts  of  supererogation.  Yet  there 
is  no  doubt  as  to  the  dignity  and  colour  of  these 
functions. 

From  the  packed  street  the  Prince  passed  into  the 
great  chamber  of  the  Provincial  Parliament  Build- 
ing, where  there  seemed  an  air  of  soft,  red  twilight 
compounded  from  the  colour  of  the  walls  and  the  old 
pictures,  as  well  as  from  the  robes  and  uniforms 
of  the  dignitaries  and  the  gowns  of  the  many 
ladies. 

As  ceremonies  these  welcomes  were  always  short, 
though  there  was  always  a  number  of  presentations 
made,  and  the  Prince  was  soon  in  the  open  again. 
In  the  open  there  were  war  veterans  to  inspect,  for  in 
whatever  town  he  entered,  large  or  small  or  remote, 
there  was  always  a  good  showing  of  Canadians  who 
had  served  and  won  honours  in  Europe. 

Everywhere,  in  great  cities  or  in  a  hamlet  that  was 
no  more  than  a  scattering  of  homesteads  round  a 
prairie's  siding,  His  Royal  Highness  showed  a  par- 
ticular keenness  to  meet  these  soldiers.  They  were 
his  own  comrades  in  arms,  as  he  always  called  them, 
and  when  he  said  that  he  meant  it,  for  he  never 
willingly  missed  an  opportunity  of  getting  among 


Halifax,  Nova  Scotia  51 

them  and  resuming  the  comradeship  he  had  learned 
to  value  at  the  Front. 

In  most  towns,  as  in  Halifax,  his  reund  of  visits 
always  included  the  hospitals.  His  car  took  him 
through  the  bright  sunshine  of  the  Halifax  streets 
to  these  big  and  very  efficient  buildings,  where  he 
went  through  the  wards,  chatting  here  and  there  to 
a  cot  or  a  convalescent  patient,  and  not  forgetting 
the  natty  Canadian  nurses  or  the  doctors,  or  even, 
as  in  one  of  the  hospitals  on  this  day,  a  patient  lying 
in  a  tent  in  the  grounds  outside  the  radius  of  the 
visit. 

In  Halifax,  also,  there  was  another  grim  fact  of 
the  war  which  called  for  special  attention;  that  was 
the  area  devastated  by  the  terrible  explosion  of  a 
ship  in  the  docks  in  December,  19 17. 

The  party  left  the  main  streets  to  climb  over  the 
shoulder  of  the  peninsula  to  where  the  ruined  area 
stood.  It  is  to  the  north  of  the  town,  on  the  side  of 
the  hill  that  curves  largely  to  the  very  water's  edge. 
Down  off  the  docks,  and  an  immense  distance  away 
it  seems  from  the  slope  of  ruin,  a  steamer  loaded 
with  high  explosive  collided  with  another,  caught  fire 
and  blew  up,  and  on  the  entire  bosom  of  that  slope 
can  be  seen  what  that  gigantic  detonation  accom- 
plished. 

The  force  of  the  explosion  swept  up  the  hill  and 
the  wooden  houses  went  down  like  things  of  card. 
In  the  trail  of  the  explosion  followed  fire.  As  the 
plank  houses  collapsed  the  fires  within  them  ignited 
their  frail  fabric  and  the  entire  hillside  became  a 
mass  of  flames. 


52    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

The  Prince  looked  upon  a  hill  set  with  scars  in 
rows,  the  rock  foundations  of  houses  that  had  been. 
Houses  had,  in  the  main,  disappeared,  though  here 
and  there  there  was  a  crazy  structure  hanging  to- 
gether by  nails  only.  Across  the  arm  of  the  harbour, 
on  the  pretty,  wooded  Dartmouth  side,  he  could  see 
among  the  trees  the  sprawled  ugliness  of  the  ruin 
the  explosion  had  spread  even  there. 

On  this  bleak  slope,  where  the  grass  was  growing 
raggedly  over  the  ruins,  the  old  inhabitants  were 
showing  little  inclination  to  return.  Only  a  few  neat 
houses  were  in  course  of  erection  where,  before,  there 
had  been  thousands.  It  was  as  though  the  hillside 
had  become  evil,  and  men  feared  it. 

Over  the  hill,  and  by  roads  which  are  best  de- 
scribed as  corrugated  (outside  the  main  town  roads 
of  Canada,  faith,  hope  and  strong  springs  are  the 
best  companions  on  a  motor  ride),  he  went  to  where 
a  new  district  is  being  built  to  house  the  victims  of 
the  disaster. 

Modern  Canada  is  having  its  way  in  this  new  area, 
and  broad  streets,  grass  lawns  and  pretty  houses  of 
wood,  brick  or  concrete  with  characteristic  porches 
giv^e  these  new  homes  the  atmosphere  of  the  garden 
city. 

Perched  as  it  is  high  on  the  hill,  with  the  sparkling 
water  of  the  harbour  close  by,  one  can  easily  argue 
that  good  has  come  out  of  the  evil.  But  as  one 
mutters  the  platitude  the  Canadian  who  drives  the 
car  points  to  the  long,  tramless  hill  that  connects  the 
place  with  the  heart  of  the  city,  and  tells  you  curtly: 

"  That's  called  Hungry  Hill." 


HaUfax,  Nova  Scotia  53 


"Why  Hungry  Hill?" 

"  It's  so  long  that  a  man  dies  of  hunger  before  he 
can  get  home  from  his  office." 


IV 

The  social  side  of  the  visit  followed. 

The  Prince  went  from  the  devastated  area,  and 
from  his  visit  to  some  of  the  people  who  were  al- 
ready housed  in  their  new  homes,  through  the  at- 
tractive residential  streets  of  Halifax  to  the  Waeg- 
woltic  Club. 

This  club  is  altogether  charming,  and  one  of  the 
most  perfect  places  of  recreation  I  have  seen.  The 
club-house  is  a  low,  white  rambling  building  set 
among  trees  and  the  most  perfect  of  lawns.  It  has 
really  beautiful  suites  of  rooms,  including  a  dancing 
hall  and  a  dining-room.  From  its  broad  verandah  a 
steep  grass  slope  drops  down  to  the  sea  water  of  one 
of  the  harbour  arms.  Many  trees  shade  the  slope 
and  the  idling  paths  on  it,  and  through  the  trees 
shines  the  water,  which  has  an  astonishing  blueness. 

At  the  water's  edge  is  a  bathing  place,  with  board 
rafts  and  a  high  skeleton  diving  platform.  Here  are 
boys  and  girls,  looking  as  though  they  were  posing 
for  Harrison  Fisher,  diving,  or  lolling  in  the  vivid 
sun  on  the  plank  rafts. 

With  its  bright  sea,  on  which  are  canoes  and  scar- 
let sailed  yachts,  the  vivid  green  of  its  grass  slopes 
under  the  superb  trees,  the  Waegwoltic  Club  is  idyl- 
lic. It  is  the  dream  of  the  perfect  holiday  place 
come  true. 


54    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

Quite  close  to  it  is  aiaother  club  of  individuality. 
It  is  a  club  without  club-house  that  has  existed  in 
that  state  for  over  sixty  years. 

This  is  the  Studley  Quoit  Club,  which  the  Prince 
visited  after  he  had  lunched  at  the  Waegwoltic.  Its 
premises  are  made  up  of  a  quoit  field,  a  fence  and 
some  trees,  and  the  good  sportsmen,  its  members, 
as  they  showed  His  Royal  Highness  round,  pointed 
solemnly  to  a  fir  to  which  a  telephone  was  clamped, 
and  said: 

"  That  is  our  secretary's  office." 

A  table  under  a  spruce  was  the  dining-room,  a 
book  of  cuttings  concerning  the  club  on  a  desk  was 
the  library,  while  a  bench  against  a  fence  was  the 
smoking  lounge.  It  is  a  club  of  humour  and  pride, 
that  has  held  together  with  a  genial  and  breezy  con- 
tinuity for  generations.  And  it  has  two  privileges, 
of  which  it  is  justly  proud:  one  is  the  right  to  fly  the 
British  Navy  ensign,  gained  through  one  of  its  first 
members,  an  admiral;  the  other  is  that  its  rum  punch 
yet  survives  in  a  dry  land. 

The  Prince's  visit  to  such  a  gathering  of  sportsmen 
was,  naturally,  an  affair  of  delightful  informality. 
There  was  a  certain  swopping  of  reminiscences  of 
the  King,  who  had  also  visited  the  club,  and  a  certain 
dry  attitude  of  awe  in  the  President,  who,  in  speaking 
of  the  honours  the  Prince  had  accepted  just  before 
leaving  England,  said  that  though  the  members  of 
the  Studley  Club  felt  competent  to  entertain  His 
Royal  Highness  as  a  Colonel  of  the  Guards,  as  the 
Grand  Master  of  Freemasons,  or  ev&n,  at  a  pinch,  as 
a  King's  Counsel,   they  felt  while  in  their  earthly 


Halifax,  Nova  Scotia  ^^ 


flesh  some  trepidation  in  offering  hospitality  to  a 
Brother  of  the  Trinity  —  a  celestial  office  which,  the 
President  understood,  the  Prince  had  accepted  prior 
to  his  journey. 

It  was  a  happy  little  gathering,  a  relief,  perhaps, 
from  set  functions,  and  the  Prince  entered  fully  into 
the  spirit  of  the  occasion.  He  drank  the  famous 
punch,  and  signed  the  Club  roll,  showing  great 
amusement  when  some  one  asked  him  if  he  were 
signing  the  pledge. 

On  leaving  this  quaint  club  he  came  in  for  a  cheery 
mobbing;  men  and  women  crowded  round  him,  flap- 
pers stormed  his  car  in  the  hope  of  shaking  hands, 
while  babies  held  up  by  elders  won  the  handclasp 
without  a  struggle. 

A  crowded  day  was  closed  by  a  yet  more  crowded 
reception.  It  was  an  open  reception  of  the  kind 
which  I  believe  I  am  right  in  saying  the  Prince  him- 
self was  responsible  for  initiating  on  this  trip.  It 
was  a  reception  not  of  privileged  people  bearing  in- 
vitations, but  of  the  whole  city. 

The  whole  city  came. 

Citizens  of  all  ages  and  all  occupations  rolled  up 
at  Government  House  to  meet  His  Royal  Highness. 
They  filled  the  broad  lawn  in  front  of  the  rather 
meek  stone  building,  and  overflowed  into  the  street. 
They  waited  wedged  tightly  together  in  hot  and 
sunny  weather  until  they  could  take  their  turn  In  the 
endless  file  that  was  pushing  Into  the  house  where  the 
Prince  was  waiting  to  shake  hands  with  them. 

It  was  a  gathering  of  every  conceivable  type  of 
citizen.     Silks  and  New  York  frocks  had  no  advan- 


56    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

tage  over  gingham  and  "  ready  to  wear."  Judge's 
wife  and  general's  took  their  turn  with  the  girl  clerk 
from  the  drug  store  and  their  char  lady's  daughter. 
Workers  still  in  their  overalls,  boys  in  their  shirt- 
sleeves, soldiers  and  dockside  workers  and  teamsters 
all  joined  in  the  crowd  that  passed  for  hours  before 
the  Prince. 

At  St.  John  he  had  shaken  hands  with  some  2,000 
people  in  such  a  reception  as  this,  at  Halifax  the 
figure  could  not  have  been  less,  and  it  was  probably 
more.  He  shook  hands  with  all  who  came,  and  had 
a  word  with  most,  even  with  those  admirable  but 
embarrassing  old  ladies  (one  of  whom  at  least  ap- 
peared at  each  of  these  functions)  who  declared  that, 
having  lived  long  enough  to  see  the  children  of  two 
British  rulers,  they  were  anxious  that  he  should  lose 
no  time  in  giving  them  the  chance  of  seeing  the  chil- 
dren of  a  third. 

It  was  an  astonishing  spectacle  of  affable  democ- 
racy, and  in  effect  it  was  perhaps  the  happiest  idea 
in  the  tour.  The  popularity  of  these  "  open  to  all 
the  town  "  meetings  was  astonishing.  "  The  Every- 
day People  "  whom  the  Prince  had  expressed  so 
eager  a  desire  to  see  and  meet  came  to  these  recep- 
tions in  such  overwhelming  numbers  that  in  large 
cities  such  as  Toronto,  Ottawa  and  the  like  it  was 
manifestly  Impossible  for  him  to  meet  even  a  fraction 
of  the  numbers. 

Yet  this  fact  did  not  mar  the  receptions.  The 
people  of  Canada  understood  that  he  was  making  a 
real  attempt  at  meeting  as  many  of  them  as  was 
humanly  possible,  and  even  those  who  did  not  get 


Halifax,  Nova  Scotia  57 


close  enough  to  shake  his  hand  were  able  to  recog- 
nize that  his  desire  was  genuine  as  his  happiness  in 
meeting  them  was  unaffected  and  friendly. 

The  public  receptions  were  the  result  of  an  un- 
studied democratic  impulse,  and  the  Canadian  people 
were  of  all  people  those  able  to  appreciate  that  im- 
pulse most. 


CHAPTER  V 

CHARLOTTETOWN,    PRINCE    EDWARD   ISLAND, 
AND    HABITANT,    CANADA 


THE  Prince  of  Wales  and  his  cruiser  escort 
left  Halifax  on  the  night  of  Monday, 
August  1 8th,  for  Prince  Edward  Island, 
in  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence,  arriving  at  the  capital 
of  that  province  the  next  morning. 

Owing  to  the  difficulty  of  getting  across  country, 
the  Press  correspondents  were  unable  to  be  present 
at  this  visit,  and  went  direct  by  train  to  Quebec  to 
await  the  Prince's  arrival. 

We  were  sorry  not  to  visit  this  tiny,  self-contained 
province  of  the  Dominion,  for  we  had  heard  much 
concerning  Its  charm  and  individuality  In  character. 
It  Is  a  fertile  little  island,  rich  In  agriculture,  sport 
and  fishing.  It  Is  an  island  of  bright  red  beaches  and 
green  downs  set  in  a  clear  sea,  an  Eden  for  bathers 
and  holiday-makers. 

It  Is  also  one  of  the  last  rallylng-polnts  of  the  silver 
fox,  which  is  bred  by  the  islanders  for  the  fur  market. 
This  is  a  pocket  industry  unique  in  Canada.  The 
animals  are  tended  with  the  care  given  to  prize  fowls, 
each  having  Its  own  kennel  and  wire  run.  Such 
domesticity  renders  them  neither  hardy  nor  prolific, 
and  the  breeding  is  an  exacting  pursuit. 

58 


Chariot tetown^  Frince  Edward  Island    59 

At  the  capital,  Charlottetown,  His  Royal  High- 
ness had  a  real  Canadian  welcome,  tinged  not  a  little 
with  excitement.  While  he  was  on  the  racecourse 
one  of  the  stands  took  fire,  and  there  was  the  begin- 
ning of  a  panic,  men  and  women  starting  to  clamber 
wildly  out  of  it  and  dropping  from  its  sides.  The 
Prince,  however,  kept  his  place  and  continued  to 
watch  the  races.  His  presence  on  the  stand  quieted 
the  nervous  and  checked  what  might  have  been  an 
ugly  rush,  while  the  fire  was  very  quickly  got  under. 

Off  Charlottetown  the  Prince  transferred  again  to 
the  battle-cruiser  Renown,  and  finished  the  last  sec- 
tion of  his  sea  voyage  up  the  great  St.  Lawrence  on 
her. 

II 

Our  disappointment  at  not  seeing  Prince  Edward 
Island  was  mitigated  by  the  glimpses  we  had  from 
our  train  of  the  country  of  New  Brunswick  and  the 
great  area  of  the  habitants  that  surrounds  Quebec. 

On  the  morning  of  August  19th  we  woke  to  the 
broken  country  of  New  Brunswick.  The  forests  of 
spruce,  pine,  maple  and  poplar  made  walls  on  the 
very  fringe  of  the  single-line  railway  track  for  miles, 
giving  way  abruptly  to  broad  and  placid  lakes,  or  to 
sharp  narrow  valleys,  in  which  shallow  streams 
pressed  forward  over  beds  of  white  stone  and  rock. 
At  this  time  the  streams  were  narrowed  down  to  a 
slim  channel,  but  the  broad  area  of  white  shingle  — 
frequently  scored  by  many  subsidiary  thin  channels 
of  water  —  gave  an  idea  of  what  these  streams  were 
like  in  flood. 


6o    Westward  zvith  the  Prince  of  Wales 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  unfriendly  black  rock  in 
the  land  pushing  itself  boldly  up  in  hills,  or  cropping 
out  from  the  thin  covering  soil.  Here  and  there 
were  the  clearings  of  homesteaders,  who  lived  some- 
times in  pretty  plank  houses,  sometimes  in  the  low 
shacks  of  rough  logs  that  seemed  to  be  put  in  the 
clearings  —  some  of  them  not  yet  free  of  the  high 
tree  stumps  —  in  order  to  give  the  land  its  authentic 
local  colour. 

On  the  streams  that  flow  between  the  walls  of 
trees  there  were  always  logs.  Logs  sometimes  jam- 
ming the  whole  fairway  with  an  indescribable  jumble, 
logs  collected  into  river  bays  with  a  neatness  that 
made  the  surface  of  the  water  appear  one  great  raft, 
and  by  these  "  log  booms  "  there  was,  usually,  the 
piles  of  squared  timber,  and  the  collection  of  rough 
wooden  houses  that  formed  the  mill. 

The  mills  have  the  air  of  being  pit-head  workings 
dealing  with  a  cleaner  material  than  coal.  About 
them  are  lengthy  conveyors,  built  up  on  high  trestle 
timbers,  that  carry  the  logs  from  the  water  to  the 
mill  and  from  the  mill  to  the  dumps,  that  one  in- 
stantly compares  to  the  conveyors  and  winding  gear 
of  a  coal  mine.  Beneath  the  conveyors  are  great 
ragged  mounds  of  short  logs  cut  into  sections  for  the 
paper  pulp  trade,  and  jumbled  heaps  of  shorter  sec- 
tions that  are  to  serve  as  the  winter  firing  for  whole 
districts;  these  have  the  contours  of  coal  dumps, 
while  fed  from  chutes  are  hillocks  of  golden  sawdust 
as  big  and  as  conspicuous  as  the  ash  and  slag  mounds 
of  the  mining  areas. 

In  the  mill  yards  are  stacks  and  stacks  of  house 


Chariot tet own.  Prince  Edward  Island    6 1 


planks  that  the  great  saws  have  sliced  up  with  an 
uncanny  ease  and  speed,  stacks  of  square  shingles  for 
roofs  and  miles  of  squared  beams. 

We  passed  not  a  few  but  a  multitude  of  these 
"  booms  "  and  mills,  and  our  minds  began  to  grasp 
the  vastness  of  this  natural  and  national  industry. 
And  yet  it  is  not  in  the  main  a  whole-time  industry. 
For  a  large  section  of  its  workers  it  is  a  side  line,  an 
occupation  for  days  that  would  otherwise  be  idle. 
It  is  the  winter  work  of  farmers,  who,  forced  to 
cease  their  own  labours  owing  to  the  deep  snow  and 
the  frosts,  turn  to  lumbering  to  keep  them  busy  until 
the  thaw  sets  in. 

That  fact  helps  the  mind  to  realize  the  potential- 
ities of  Canada.  Here  is  a  business  as  big  as  coal 
mining  that  is  largely  the  fruit  of  work  in  days  when 
there  is  little  else  to  do. 

We  saw  this  industry  at  a  time  when  the  streams 
were  congested  and  the  mills  inactive.  It  was  the 
summer  season,  but,  more  than  that,  the  lack  of 
transport,  owing  to  the  sinking,  or  the  surrender  by 
Canada  for  war  purposes,  of  so  much  ship  space,  was 
having  its  effect  on  the  lumber  trade.  The  market, 
even  as  far  as  Britain,  was  in  urgent  need  of  timber, 
and  the  timber  was  ready  for  the  market;  but  the  ex- 
igencies, or,  as  some  Canadians  were  inclined  to  ar- 
gue, the  muddle  of  shipping  conditions,  were  holding 
up  this,  as  well  as  many  other  of  the  Dominion  in- 
dustries. 

In  this  sporting  country  there  are  many  likely 
looking  streams  for  fishermen,  as  there  are  likely 
looking    forests    for    game.     At    New    Castle    we 


62    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

touched  the  MIramichi,  which  has  the  reputation  of 
being  the  finest  salmon-fishing  river  in  New  Bruns- 
wick; the  Nepisiquit,  the  mouth  of  which  we  skirted 
at  Bathurst,  is  also  a  great  centre  for  fishermen,  and, 
indeed,  the  whole  of  this  country  about  the  shores 
of  the  great  Baie  de  Chaleur  —  that  immense  thrust 
made  by  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  between  the  prov- 
inces of  New  Brunswick  and  Quebec  —  is  a  paradise 
for  holiday-makers  and  sportsmen,  who,  besides  their 
fishing,  get  excellent  shooting  at  brant,  geese,  duck, 
and  all  kinds  of  game. 

The  Canadian  of  the  cities  has  his  country  cottage 
in  this  splendidly  beautiful  area,  which  he  comes  to 
for  his  recreation,  and  at  other  times  leaves  in  charge 
of  a  local  farmer,  who  fills  his  wood  shed  with  fire 
logs  from  the  forest  in  the  summer,  and  his  ice  house 
with  ice  from  the  rivers  in  winter. 


Ill 

In  this  district,  and  long  before  we  reached  the 
Quebec  border,  we  came  to  the  country  of  the  habit- 
ant farmer.  As  we  stopped  at  sections  to  water  or 
change  engines,  we  saw  that  this  was  a  land  where 
man  must  be  master  of  two  tongues  if  he  is  to  make 
himself  understood.  It  is  a  land  where  we  read  on 
a  shop  window  the  legend :  "  J.  Art  Levesque. 
Barbler.  Agent  du  Lowdnes  Co.  Habits  sur  com- 
mande."  Here  the  habitant  does  business  at  La 
Banque  Nationale,  and  takes  his  pleasure  at  the 
Exposition  Provinciale,  where  his  skill  can  win  him 
Prix  Populaires. 


Charlottetown^  Prince  Edward  Island    63 

On  the  stations  we  talked  with  men  in  British 
khaki  trousers  who  told  us  in  a  language  in  which 
Canadian  French  and  camp  English  was  strangely 
mingled  of  the  service  they  had  seen  on  the  British 
front. 

It  is  the  district  where  the  clever  and  painstaking 
French  agriculturist  gets  every  grain  out  of  the  soil, 
a  district  where  we  could  see  the  spire  of  a  parish 
church  every  six  miles,  the  land  of  a  people,  sturdy, 
devout,  tenacious  and  law-abiding,  the  "  true  '  Cana- 
yen  '  themselves," 

"  And  in  their  veins  the  same  red  stream: 
The  conquering  blood  of  Normandie 
Flowed  strong,  and  gave  America 
Coureurs  de  bois  and  voyageurs 
Whose  trail  extends  from  sea  to  sea !  " 

as  William  Henry  Drummond,  a  true  poet  who  drew 
from  them  inspiration  for  his  delightful  dialect  verse, 
describes  them. 

The  railway  passes  for  hundreds  of  miles  between 
habitant  farms.  The  land  is  beautifully  cared  for, 
every  fragment  of  rock,  from  a  boulder  to  a  pebble, 
having  been  collected  from  the  soil  through  genera- 
tions, and  piled  in  long,  thin  caches  in  the  centres  of 
the  fields.  The  effect  of  passing  for  hundreds  of 
miles  between  these  precisely  aligned  cairns  is 
strange;  one  cannot  get  away  from  the  feeling  that 
the  rocky  mounds  are  there  for  some  barbaric  tribal 
reason,  and  that  presently  one  will  see  a  war  dance 
or  a  sacrifice  taking  place  about  one  of  them. 

The  farms  themselves  have  a  strange  appearance. 


64    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

They  have  an  abnormally  narrow  frontage.  They 
are  railed  in  strips  of  not  much  greater  breadth  than 
a  London  back  garden,  though  they  extend  away 
from  the  railway  to  a  depth  of  a  mile  and  more. 
At  first  this  grouping  of  the  land  appears  accidental, 
but  the  endlessness  of  the  strange  design  soon  con- 
vinces that  there  is  a  purpose  underlying  it. 

Two  explanations  are  offered.  One  is  that  the 
land  has  been  parcelled  out  in  this  way,  and  not  on  a 
broad  square  acreage,  because  in  the  old  pioneer  days 
it  afforded  the  best  means  of  grouping  the  home- 
steads together  for  defence  against  the  Red  Man. 
The  other  is  that  it  is  the  result  of  the  French- 
Canadian  law  which  enforces  the  division  of  an 
estate  among  children  in  exact  proportion,  and  thus 
the  original  big  farms  have  been  split  up  into  equal 
strips  among  the  descendants  of  the  original  owner. 
Either  of  these  explanations,. or  the  combination  of 
them,  can  be  accepted. 

At  Campbellton,  a  pretty,  toy-like  town,  close  up 
to  La  Bale  de  Chaleur,  there  is  gathered  a  remnant 
of  the  Micmac  Indians,  whom  the  first  settlers  feared. 
They  have  a  settlement  of  their  own  on  a  peak  of 
the  Baie,  and  one  of  their  chiefs  had  travelled  to 
Halifax  to  be  among  those  who  welcomed  the  son 
of   the   Great   White    Chief. 

Campbellton  let  us  into  the  lovely  valley  of  the 
Matapedia,  an  enchanted  spot  where  the  river  lolls 
on  a  broad  bed  through  a  grand  country  of  grim  hills 
and  forests.  Now  and  then,  indeed,  its  channel  is 
pinched  into  gorges  where  its  water  shines  pallidly 
and  angrily  amid  the  crowded  shadows  of  rock  and 


Charlottetown,  Vr'ince  'Edward  Island    65 

tree;  usually  it  is  the  nursemaid  of  rich,  flat  valleys 
and  the  friend  of  the  little  frame-house  hamlets  that 
are  linked  across  its  waters  by  a  spidery  bridge  of 
wooden  trestles.  At  times  beneath  the  hills  it  is 
swift  and  combed  by  a  thousand  stony  fingers,  and  at 
other  times  it  is  an  idler  in  Arcadie,  a  dilettante 
stream  that  wanders  in  half  a  dozen  feckless  channels 
over  a  desert  of  white  stones,  with  here  and  there 
the  green  humpback  of  an  island  inviting  the  camper. 

Beyond  Matapedia  we  got  the  thrill  of  the  run,  an 
abrupt  glimpse  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  steel-blue  and 
apparently  infinite,  its  thirty  miles  of  breadth  yield- 
ing not  a  glimpse  of  the  farther  side.  A  short  dis- 
tance on,  beyond  Mont  Joli,  a  place  that  might  have 
come  out  of  a  sample  box  of  French  villages,  the  rail- 
way keeps  the  immense  river  company  for  the  rest 
of  the  journey. 

The  valley  broadened  out  Into  an  Immense  flat 
plain  with  but  few  traces  of  the  wilder  hills  of  New 
Brunswick.  About  the  line  is  a  belt  of  prosperity 
forty  miles  deep,  all  of  it  worked  by  the  habitant 
owners  of  the  narrow  farms,  all  of  it  so  rich  that  in 
the  whole  area  from  the  border  to  the  city  of  Quebec 
there  is  not  a  poor  farmer. 

Before  reaching  Riviere  du  Loup  we  saw  the  high 
peaks  of  the  Laurentine  Mountains  on  the  far  side 
of  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  on  our  side  of  the  stream 
passed  a  grim  little  islet  called  L'Islet  au  Massacre, 
where  a  party  of  Micmac  Indians,  fleeing  from  the 
Iroquois  in  the  old  days,  were  caught  as  they  hid  in 
a  deep  cave,  and  killed  by  a  great  fire  that  their 
enemies  built  at  the  mouth. 


66    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

We  saw  a  few  seals  on  the  rocks  of  the  river,  but 
not  a  hint  of  the  numbers  that  gave  Riviere  du  Loup 
its  name.  It  is  a  cameo  of  a  town  with  falls  sliding 
down-hill  over  a  chute  of  jumbled  rocks  into  a  log- 
ging pool  beneath. 

Riviere  du  Loup  is  in  the  last  lap  of  the  journey  to 
Quebec.  There  are  a  score  or  so  of  little  hamlets, 
the  names  of  which  —  St.  Alexandre,  St.  Andre,  St. 
Pascal,  St.  Pacome,  St.  Valier  and  so  on  —  sound 
like  a  reading  from  the  Litany  of  the  Saints.  And, 
passing  the  last  of  them,  we  saw  across  the  narrowed 
St.  Lawrence  a  trail  of  lace  against  the  darkness  of 
the  Laurentine  hills,  a  mass  of  filigree  that  moved 
and  writhed,  so  that  we  understood  when  some  one 
said: 

"  The  Montmorency  Falls." 

A  moment  later  we  saw  across  the  stream  the  city 
of  Quebec,  a  hanging  town  of  fairyland,  with  pin- 
nacle and  spire,  bastion  and  citadel  delicate  against 
the  quick  sky.  A  city  of  romance  and  charm,  to 
which  we  hurried  by  the  very  humdrum  route  of  the 
steam  ferry  that  crosses  to  it  from  the  Levis  side. 


CHAPTER  VI 

QUEBEC 


OUEBEC  is  not  merely  historic:  it  suggests 
history.  It  has  the  grand  manner.  One 
feels  in  one's  bones  that  it  is  a  city  of  a 
splendid  past.  The  first  sight  of  Quebec  piled  up 
on  its  opposite  bluff  where  the  waters  of  the  St. 
Charles  swell  the  mighty  volume  of  the  St.  Lawrence 
convinces  one  that  this  grave  city  is  the  cradle  of 
civilization  in  the  West,  the  overlord  of  the  river 
road  to  the  sea  and  the  heart  of  history  and  romance 
for  Canada. 

One  does  not  require  prompting  to  recognize  that 
history  has  to  go  back  centuries  to  reach  the  day 
when  Cartier  first  landed  here;  or  that  Champlain 
figured  bravely  in  its  story  in  a  brave  and  romantie 
era  of  the  world,  and  that  it  was  he  who  saw  its  im- 
portance as  a  commanding  point  of  the  great  water- 
way that  struck  deep  into  the  heart  of  the  rich  do- 
minion —  though  he  did  think  that  dominion  was  a 
fragment  of  the  fabulous  Indies  with  a  door  into  the 
rich  realms  of  China. 

Instinct  seems  to  tell  one  that  on  the  lifting  plain 
behind  the  bulldog  Citadel,  Montcalm  lost  and  died, 
and  Wolfe  died  and  won. 

One  knows,   too,   that  from  this  city  thick  with 

67 


68    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

spires,  streams  of  Christianity  and  civilization  flowed 
west  and  north  and  south  to  quicken  the  whole  bar- 
baric continent;  that  it  was  the  nucleus  that  concen- 
trated all  the  energy  of  the  vast  New  World. 


II 

From  the  decks  of  the  three  war  vessels,  the 
Renozvn  and  the  escorting  cruisers,  Quebec  must 
have  seemed  like  a  city  of  a  dream  hanging  against 
the  quiet  sky  of  a  glorious  evening. 

The  piled-up  mass  of  the  city  on  its  abrupt  cape  is 
romantic,  and  suggests  the  drama  of  a  Rhine  castle 
with  a  grace  and  a  significance  that  is  French.  On 
that  evening  of  August  2ist,  when  the  strings  and 
blobs  of  colour  from  a  multitude  of  flags  picked  out 
the  clustering  of  houses  that  climbed  Cape  Diamond 
to  the  grey  walls  of  the  Citadel,  the  city  from  the 
St.  Lawrence  had  an  appearance  glowing  and  fantas- 
tic. 

From  Quebec  the  three  fine  ships  steaming  in  line 
up  the  blue  waters  of  the  river  were  a  sight  dramatic 
and  beautiful,  though  from  the  heights  and  against 
the  wall  of  cliffs  on  the  Levis  side,  a  mile  across 
stream,  the  cruisers  were  strangely  dwarfed,  and 
even  Renown  appeared  a  small  but  desirable  toy. 

In  keeping  with  the  general  atmosphere  of  the 
town  and  toy-like  ships,  Quebec  herself  put  a  touch 
of  the  fantastic  into  the  charm  of  her  greeting. 

As  the  cruisers  dressed  ship,  and  joined  with  the 
guns  of  the  Citadel  in  the  salute,  there  soared  from 
the  city  itself  scores  of  maroons.     From  the  flash 


Quebec  69 

and  smoke  of  their  bursts  there  fluttered  down  many 
coloured  things.  Caught  by  the  wind,  these  things 
opened  out  into  parachutes,  from  which  were  sus- 
pended large  silk  flags.  Soon  the  sky  was  flecked 
with  the  bright,  tricoloured  bubbles  of  parachutes, 
bearing  Jacks  and  Navy  Ensigns,  Tricolours  and 
Royal  Standards  down  the  wind. 

The  official  landing  at  King's  Wharf  was  full  of 
characteristic  colour  also.  It  was  in  a  wide,  open 
space  right  under  the  grey  rock  upon  which  the 
Citadel  is  reared.  In  this  square,  tapestried  with 
flags,  and  in  a  little  canvas  pavilion  of  bright  red  and 
white,  the  Prince  met  the  leading  sons  of  Quebec, 
the  French-Canadian  and  the  English-Canadian;  the 
Bishop  of  the  English  cathedral  in  gaiters  and  apron, 
the  Bishops  of  the  Catholics  in  corded  hats,  scarlet 
gloves  and  long  cassocks.  Sailors  and  soldiers, 
women  in  bright  and  smart  gowns  gave  the  reception 
a  glow  and  vivacity  that  had  a  quality  true  to  Quebec. 

From  this  short  ceremony  the  Prince  drove 
through  the  quaint  streets  to  the  Citadel.  In  the 
lower  town  under  the  rock  his  way  led  through  a 
quarter  that  might  well  stage  a  Stanley  Weyman 
romance.  It  is  a  quarter  where,  between  high- 
shouldered,  straight-faced  houses,  run  the  narrowest 
of  streets,  some  of  them,  like  Sous  le  Cap,  so 
cramped  that  it  is  merely  practical  to  use  windows  as 
the  supports  for  clothes-lines,  and  to  hang  the  alleys 
with  banners  of  drying  washing. 

In  these  cramped  streets  named  with  the  names  of 
saints,  are  sudden  little  squares,  streets  that  are  mere 
staircases  up  to  the  cliff-top,  and  others  that  deserve 


70    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

the  name  of  one  of  them,  The  Mountain.  In  these 
narrow  canyons,  through  which  the  single-decked 
electric  trams  thunder  like  mammoths  who  have  lost 
their  way,  are  most  of  the  commercial  houses  and 
nearly  all  the  mud  of  the  city. 

At  the  end  of  this  olden  quarter,  merging  from 
the  very  air  of  antiquity  in  the  streets,  Quebec,  with 
a  characteristic  Canadian  gesture,  adopts  modernity. 
That  is  the  vivid  thing  about  the  city.  It  is  not 
merely  historical:  it  is  up-to-date.  It  is  not  merely 
the  past,  but  it  is  the  future  also.  At  the  end  of  the 
old,  cramped  streets  stands  Quebec's  future  —  its 
docks. 

These  great  dockyards  at  the  very  toe  of  the  cape 
are  the  latest  things  of  their  kind.  They  have  been 
built  to  take  the  traffic  of  tomorrow  as  well  as  today. 
Greater  ships  than  those  yet  built  can  lie  in  safe 
water  alongside  the  huge  new  concrete  quays.  Great 
ships  can  go  into  dry  dock  here,  or  across  the  water 
in  the  shipyards  of  Levis.  They  even  build  or  put 
together  ships  of  large  tonnage,  and  while  we  were 
there,  there  were  ships  in  half  sections;  by  them- 
selves too  big  to  be  floated  down  from  the  lakes 
through  the  locks,  they  had  come  down  from  the 
building  slips  in  floatable  halves  to  be  riveted  to- 
gether in  Quebec. 

A  web  of  railways  serves  these  great  harbour 
basins,  and  the  latest  mechanical  loading  gear  can 
whip  cargo  out  of  ships  or  into  them  at  record  speed 
and  with  infinite  ease.  Huge  elevators  —  one  con- 
crete monster  that  had  been  reared  in  a  Canadian 
hustle   of   seven   days  —  can   stream   grain  by   the 


Quebec  71 

million  tons  Into  holds,  while  troops,  passengers  and 
the  whole  mechanics  of  human  transport  can  be 
handled  with  the  greatest  facility. 

The  Prince  went  up  the  steep  cobbled  street  of 
The  Mountain  under  the  grey,  solid  old  masonry 
of  the  Battery  that  hangs  over  the  town  in  front  of 
Laval  University,  that  with  the  Archbishop's  palace 
looks  like  a  piece  of  old  France  translated  bodily  to 
Canada. 

So  he  came  to  the  big,  green  Place  des  Armes,  not 
now  a  place  of  arms,  and  at  that  particular  moment 
not  green,  but  as  thick  as  a  gigantic  flower-bed  with 
the  pretty  dresses  of  pretty  women  —  and  there  is 
all  the  French  charm  in  the  beauty  of  the  women  of 
Quebec  —  and  with  the  khaki  and  commonplace  of 
soldiers  and  civilians.  A  mighty  and  enthusiastic 
crowd  that  did  not  allow  its  French  accent  to  hinder 
the  shout  of  welcome  it  had  caught  up  from  the 
throng  that  lined  the  slopes  of  The  Mountain. 

From  this  point  the  route  twisted  to  the  right 
along  the  Grande  Allee,  going  first  between  tall  and 
upright  houses,  jalousied  and  severe  faced,  to  where 
a  strip  of  side  road  swung  it  left  again,  and  up  hill 
to  the  Citadel,  where  His  Royal  Highness  lived  dur- 
ing his  stay. 

From  the  Place  des  Armes  the  profile  of  the  town 
pushes  back  along  the  heights  to  the  peak  on  which 
is  the  Citadel,  a  squat  and  massive  structure  that 
seems  to  have  grown  rather  than  to  have  been  built 
from  the  living  rock  upon  which  it  Is  based. 

Between  the  Citadel  and  the  Place  des  Armes 
there  is  a  long,   grey  stone  wall   above   the  green 


72    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

glacis  of  the  cliff.  It  has  the  look  of  a  military  wall, 
and  it  is  not  a  military  wall.  It  supports  merely  a 
superb-promenade,  Dufferin  Terrace,  a  great  plank 
walk  poised  sheer  above  the  river,  the  like  of  which 
would  be  hard  to  equal  anywhere.  On  this  the 
homely  people  of  Quebec  take  the  air  in  a  manner 
more  sumptuous  than  many  of  the  most  aristocratic 
resorts  in  Europe. 

At  the  eastern  end  of  this  terrace,  and  forming 
the  wing  of  the  Place  des  Armes,  is  the  medieval 
structure  of  the  Chateau  Frontenac,  a  building  not 
really  more  antique  than  the  area  of  hotels  de  luxe, 
of  which  it  is  an  extremely  fine  example,  but  so 
planned  by  its  designers  as  to  fit  delightfully  into  the 
antique  texture  of  the  town. 

Below  and  shelving  away  eastward  again  Is  the 
congested  old  town,  through  which  the  Prince  had 
come,  and  behind  Citadel  and  promenade,  and 
stretching  over  the  plateau  of  the  cape,  is  a  town  of 
broad  and  comely  streets,  many  trees  and  great 
parks  as  modern  as  anything  in  Canada. 

That  night  the  big  Dufferin  Terrace  was  thronged 
by  people  out  to  see  the  firework  display  from  the 
Citadel,  and  to  watch  the  illuminations  of  the  city 
and  of  the  ships  down  on  the  calm  surface  of  the 
water.  It  was  rather  an  unexpected  crowd.  There 
were  the  sexes  by  the  thousands  packed  together  on 
that  big  esplanade,  listening  to  the  band,  looking  at 
the  fireworks  and  lights,  the  whole  town  was  there 
in  a  holiday  mood,  and  there  was  not  the  slightest 
hint  of  horseplay  or  disorder. 

The  crowd  enjoyed  itself  calmly  and  gracefully; 


Quebec  73 

there  were  none  of  those  syncopated  sounds  or 
movements  which  in  an  English  crowd  show  that 
youth  is  being  served  with  pleasure.  The  quiet  en- 
joyment of  this  good-tempered  and  vivacious  throng 
is  the  marked  attitude  of  such  Canadian  gatherings. 
I  saw  in  other  towns  big  crowds  gathered  at  the 
dances  held  in  the  street  to  celebrate  the  Prince's 
visit.  Although  thousands  of  people  of  all  grades 
and  tempers  came  together  to  dance  or  to  watch 
the  dancing,  there  was  never  the  slightest  sign  of 
rowdyism  or  disorder. 

On  this  and  the  next  two  nights  Quebec  added  to 
its  beauty.  All  the  public  buildings  were  outlined 
in  electric  light,  so  that  it  looked  more  than  ever  a 
fairy  city  hanging  in  the  air.  The  cruisers  in  the 
stream  were  outlined,  deck  and  spar  and  stack,  in 
light,  and  Renown  had  poised  between  her  masts  a 
bright  set  of  the  Prince  of  Wales's  feathers,  the 
lights  of  the  whole  group  of  ships  being  mirrored  in 
the  river.  On  Friday  Renown  gave  a  display  of 
fireworks  and  searchlights,  the  beauty  of  which  was 
doubled  by  the  reflections  in  the  water. 


Ill 

Friday  and  Saturday  (August  22  and  23)  were 
strenuous  days  for  the  Prince.  He  visited  every 
notable  spot  in  the  brilliant  and  curious  town  where 
one  spoke  first  in  French,  and  English  only  as  an 
afterthought;  where  even  the  blind  beggar  appeals 
to  the  charitable  in  two  languages;  where  the  citizens 
ride  in  up-to-date  motor-cars  and  the  visitors  in  the 


74    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

high-slung,  swing-shaped  horse  calache;  where  the 
traffic  takes  the  French  side  of  the  road;  where  the 
shovel  hats  and  cassocks  of  priests  are  as  common- 
place as  everyday;  where  the  vivacity  of  France  is 
fused  into  the  homely  good-fellowship  of  the  Colon- 
ial in  a  manner  quite  irresistible. 

He  began  Friday  in  a  wonderful  crimson  room  in 
the  Provincial  Parliament  building,  where  he  re- 
ceived addresses  in  French,  and  answered  them  in  the 
same  tongue. 

It  was  a  remarkable  room,  this  glowing  chamber 
set  in  the  handsome  Parliament  house  that  looks 
down  over  a  sweep  of  grass,  the  hipped  roofs  and  the 
pinnacles  of  the  town  to  the  St.  Lawrence.  It  was 
a  great  room  with  a  floor  of  crimson  and  walls  of 
crimson  and  white.  Over  the  mellow  oak  that  made 
a  backing  to  the  Prince's  dias  was  a  striking  picture 
of  Champlain  looking  out  from  the  deck  of  his 
tiny  sloop  The  Gift  of  God  to  the  shore  upon  which 
Quebec  was  to  rise. 

The  people  in  that  chamber  were  not  less  colour- 
ful than  the  room  itself.  Bright  dresses,  the  antique 
robes  of  Les  Membres  du  Conseil  Executif,  the  vio- 
let and  red  of  clerics,  with  the  blue,  red  and  khaki  of 
fighting  men  were  on  the  floor  and  in  the  mellow 
oak  gallery. 

Two  addresses  were  read  to  His  Royal  Highness, 
twice,  first  in  French  and  then  in  English,  and  each 
address  in  each  language  was  prefaced  by  his  list  of 
titles  —  a  long  list,  sonorous  enough  in  French,  but 
with  an  air  of  thirdly  and  lastly  when  oft  repeated. 
One  could  imagine  his  relief  when  the  fourth  Earl 


Quebec  75 

of  Carrlck  had  been  negotiated,  and  he  was  steer- 
ing safely  for  the  Lord  of  the  Isles.  A  strain  on 
any  man,  especially  when  one  of  the  readers'  pince- 
nez  began  to  contract  some  of  the  deep  feeling  of  its 
master,  and  to  slide  off  at  every  comma,  to  be  thrust 
back  with  his  ever-despening  emotion. 

The  Prince  answered  in  one  language,  and  that 
French,  and  the  surprise  and  delight  of  his  hearers 
was  profound.  They  felt  that  he  had  paid  them 
the  most  graceful  of  compliments,  and  his  fluency 
as  well  as  his  happiness  of  expression  filled  them  with 
enthusiasm.  He  showed,  too,  that  he  recognized 
what  French  Canada  had  done  in  the  war  by  his 
reference  to  the  Vingtdeuxieme  Battalion,  whose 
"  conduite  intrepide  "  he  had  witnessed  in  France. 
\X.  was  a  touch  of  knowledge  that  was  certainly  well 
chosen,  for  the  province  of  Quebec,  which  sent  forty 
thousand  men  by  direct  enlistment  to  the  war,  has, 
thanks  to  the  obscurantism  of  politics,  received 
rather  less  than  its  due. 

From  the  atmosphere  of  governance  the  Prince 
passed  to  the  atmosphere  of  the  seminary,  driving 
down  the  broad  Grand  Allee  to  the  University  of 
Laval,  called  after  the  first  Bishop  of  Quebec  and 
Canada.  It  has  been  since  it's  foundation  not  merely 
the  fountain  head  of  Christianity  on  the  American 
continent,  but  the  armoury  of  science,  in  which  all  the 
arts  of  forestry,  agriculture,  medicine  and  the  like 
were  put  at  the  service  of  the  settler  in  his  fight 
against  the  primitive  wilds. 

In  the  bleached  and  severe  corridors  of  this  great 
building  the  Prince  examined  many  historic  pictures 


76    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

of  Canada's  past,  including  a  set  of  photographs  of 
his  own  father's  visit  to  the  city  and  university.  He 
also  went  from  Laval  to  the  Archbishop's  Palace, 
where  the  Cardinal,  a  humorous,  wise,  virile  old 
prelate  in  scarlet,  showed  him  pictures  of  Queen 
Victoria  and  others  of  his  ancestors,  and  stood  by  his 
side  in  the  Grand  Saloon  while  he  held  a  reception  of 
many  clerics,  professors  and  visitors. 

The  afternoon  w^as  given  to  the  battlefield,  where 
he  unfurled  a  Union  Jack  to  inaugurate  the  beauti- 
ful park  that  extends  over  the  whole  area. 

The  beauty  of  this  park  is  a  very  real  thing.  It 
hangs  over  the  St.  Lawrence  with  a  sumptuous  air 
of  spaciousness.  Leaning  over  the  granite  balus- 
trade, one  can  look  down  on  the  tiny  Wolfe's  cove, 
where  three  thousand  British  crept  up  in  the  black- 
ness of  the  night  to  disconcert  the  French  com- 
mander. 

It  is  not  a  very  imposing  slope,  and  a  modern 
army  might  take  it  in  its  stride.  Across  the  formal 
grass  of  the  park  itself  the  learned  trace  the  hnes 
of  England  and  of  France. 

At  the  town  end  there  is  a  slight  hill  above  a  dip. 
The  British  were  in  the  dip,  France  was  on  the  hill. 
That  hill  lost  the  battle.  It  placed  the  French  be- 
tween the  British  and  the  guns  of  the  Citadel  in  days 
when  there  was  neither  aerial  observation  nor  in- 
direct fire. 

A  wind,  as  on  the  day  of  the  battle,  was  blowing 
while  the  Prince  was  on  the  field.  The  British  fired 
one  volley,  and  the  smoke  from  their  black  powder 
was  blown  into  the  faces  of  the  French.     Bewildered 


Quebec  77 

by  the  dense  cloud,  uncertain  of  what  was  In  the 
heart  of  it,  the  French  broke  and  fled.  In  twenty 
minutes  Canada  was  won. 

There  is  a  plain  monument  to  mark  the  exact  spot 
where  Wolfe  fell;  the  Prince  placed  a  wreath  upon 
it,  as  he  had  placed  wreaths  on  the  monuments  of 
Champlain  and  Montcalm  earlier,  and  as  he  did  later 
at  the  monument  Aux  Braves  on  the  field  of  Foye, 
which  commemorates  the  dead  of  both  races  who 
fell  in  the  battle  when  Murray,  a  year  after  Wolfe's 
victory,  endeavoured  to  loosen  the  grip  the  French 
besiegers  were  tightening  round  Quebec,  and  was 
defeated,  though  he  held  the  city. 

On  the  Plains  of  Abraham  —  it  has  no  romantic 
significance,  Abraham  was  merely  a  farmer  who 
owned  the  land  at  the  time  of  the  battle  —  French 
and  English  were  again  gathered  In  force,  but  in  a 
different  manner. 

It  was  a  bright  and  friendly  gathering  of  Cana- 
dians, who  no  longer  permitted  a  difference  of 
tongue  to  interfere  with  their  amity.  It  was  also 
a  gathering  of  men  and  women  and  children  (Quebec 
is  the  province  of  the  quiverful),  notably  vigorous, 
well-dressed  and  prosperous. 

The  thing  to  remark  here,  as  well  as  in  all  the 
gatherings  of  the  people  of  this  city,  was  the  absence 
of  dinginess  and  dowdiness  that  goes  with  poverty. 
In  the  great  mass  of  stone  houses,  pretty  brick  and 
wood  villas,  and  apartment  "  houses,"  the  upper  flats 
of  which  are  reached  by  curving  iron  Jacob  stair- 
ways, that  make  habitable  Quebec  there  are  patches 
of  cramped  wooden  houses,   each  built  under   the 


78    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 


architectural  stimulus  of  the  packing-case,  though 
rococo  little  porches  and  scalloped  roofs  add  a  wed- 
ding-cake charm  to  the  poverty  of  size  and  design. 
But  though  there  are  these  small  but  not  mean 
houses,  there  appear  to  be  no  poor  people. 

All  those  on  the  Plains  had  an  independent  and 
self-supporting  air  (as,  indeed,  every  person  has  in 
Canada),  and  they  gave  the  Prince  a  reception  of  a 
hearty  and  affable  kind,  as  he  declared  this  fine  park 
the  property  of  the  city,  and  made  the  citizens  free 
of  its  historic  acreage  for  all  time. 

From  the  Plains  His  Royal  Highness  went  by  car 
to  the  huge  new  railway  bridge  that  spans  the  St. 
Lawrence  a  few  miles  above  the  town.  It  was  a 
long  ride  through  comely  lanes,  by  quiet  farmsteads 
and  small  habitant  villages.  At  all  places  where 
there  was  a  nucleus  of  human  life,  men  and  women, 
but  particularly  the  children,  came  out  to  their  fences 
with  flags  to  shout  and  wave  a  greeting. 

At  the  bridge  station  were  two  open  cars,  and  on 
to  the  raised  platform  of  one  of  these  the  Prince 
mounted,  while  "  movie  "  men  stormed  the  other 
car,  and  a  number  of  ordinary  human  beings  joined 
them.  This  special  train  was  then  passed  slowly 
under  the  giant  steel  girders  and  over  the  central 
span,  which  is  longer  than  any  span  the  Forth 
Bridge  can  boast.  As  the  train  travelled  forward 
the  Prince  showed  his  eagerness  for  technical  detail, 
and  kept  the  engineers  by  his  side  busy  with  a  stream 
of  questions. 

The  bridge  is  not  only  a  superb  example  of  the 
art  of  the  engineer,  perhaps  the  greatest  example 


Quebec  79 

the  twentieth  century  can  yet  show,  but  it  is  a  monu- 
ment to  the  courage  and  tenacity  of  man.  Twice 
the  great  central  span  was  floated  up-stream  from 
the  building  yards,  only  to  collapse  and  sink  into  the 
St.  Lawrence  at  the  moment  it  was  being  lifted  into 
place.  Though  these  failures  caused  loss  of  life,  the 
designers  persisted,  and  the  third  attempt  brought 
success. 

There  was,  one  supposes,  a  ceremonial  idea  con- 
nected with  this  function.  His  Royal  Highness  cer- 
tainly unveiled  two  tablets  at  either  end  of  the  bridge 
by  jerking  cords  that  released  the  covering  Union 
Jack.  But  this  ritual  was  second  to  the  ceremonial 
of  the  "  movies." 

The  "  movies  "  went  over  the  top  in  a  grand  at- 
tack. They  put  down  a  box  barrage  close  up  against 
the  Prince's  platform,  and  at  a  distance  of  two  feet, 
not  an  inflection  of  his  face,  nor  a  movement  of  his 
head,  escaped  the  unwinking  and  merciless  eye  of  the 
camera. 

The  "  movie "  men  declare  that  the  Prince  is 
the  best  "  fil-lm  "  actor  living,  since  he  is  absolutely 
unstudied  in  manner;  but  it  would  have  taken  a 
Douglas  Fairbanks  of  a  super-breed  to  remain  unem- 
barrassed in  the  face  of  that  cold  line  of  lenses  thrust 
close  up  to  his  medal  ribbons.  And  in  the  film  he 
shows  his  feelings  in  characteristic  movements  of  lips 
and  hands. 

The  men  who  did  not  take  movies,  the  men  with 
plain  cameras,  the  "  still  "  men,  were  also  active. 
Not  to  be  outdone  by  their  comrades  with  the  ma- 
chine-gim  action,  they  sprang  from  the  car  at  inter- 


8o    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

vals,  ran  along  the  footway,  and  snapped  the  party 
as  the  train  drew  level  with  them. 

It  was  a  field  day  for  cameras,  but  enthusiastic 
people  also  counted.  Men  and  women  had 
clambered  up  the  hard,  stratified  rock  of  the  cuttings 
that  carry  the  line  to  the  bridge,  and  they  were  also 
standing  under  the  bridge  on  the  slopes,  and  on  the 
flats  by  the  river.  They  were  cheering,  and  —  yes, 
they  were  busy  with  their  cameras  also  —  cameras 
cannot  be  evaded  in  Canada,  even  in  the  wilds. 

One  had  the  impression,  from  the  diflficult  perches 
on  which  people  were  to  be  found,  that  wherever 
the  Prince  would  go  in  Canada,  to  whatever  lonely 
or  difficult  spot  his  travels  would  lead  him,  he  would 
always  find  a  Canadian  man,  and  possibly  a  Canadian 
woman  standing  waiting  or  clinging  to  precarious 
holds,  glad  to  be  there,  so  long  as  he  (or  she)  had 
breath  to  cheer  and  a  free  hand  to  wave  a  flag. 
And  this  impression  was  confirmed  by  the  story  of 
the  next  months. 


IV 

Saturday,  August  23,  was  supposed  to  give  His 
Royal  Highness  the  half-day  holiday  which  is  the 
due  of  any  worker.  That  half  day  was  peculiarly 
Canadian. 

The  business  of  the  morning  was  one  of  singular 
charm.  The  Prince  visited  the  Convent  of  the 
Ursulines,  to  which  in  the  old  days  wounded  Mont- 
calm was  taken,  and  in  whose  quiet  chapel  his  body 

lies. 

.»    The  nuns  are  cloistered  and  do  not  open  their 


Quebec  81 

doors  to  visitors,  but  on  this  day  they  welcomed  the 
Prince  with  an  eagerness  that  was  altogether  de- 
lightful. They  showed  him  through  their  serene 
yet  bare  reception  rooms,  and  with  pride  placed  be- 
fore him  the  skull  of  Montcalm,  which  they  keep  in 
their  recreation  room,  together  with  a  host  of  his- 
toric documents  dealing  with  the  struggles  of  those 
distant  days. 

The  party  was  taken  through  the  nuns'  chapel,  and 
sent  on  with  smiles  to  the  public  chapel  to  look  on 
Montcalm's  tomb,  originally  a  hole  in  the  chapel 
fabric  torn  by  British  shells.  The  nuns  could  not  go 
into  that  chapel.  "  We  are  cloistered,"  they  told 
us. 

These  child-like  nuns,  with  their  serene  and  smil- 
ing faces,  were  overjoyed  to  receive  His  Royal  High- 
ness and  anxious  to  convey  to  him  their  good  will. 

"  We  cannot  go  to  England  —  we  cannot  leave 
our  house  —  but  our  hearts  are  always  with  you, 
and  there  are  none  more  loyal  than  us,  and  none 
more  earnest  in  teaching  loyalty  to  all  the  girls  who 
come  to  us  to  study.  Yes,  we  teach  it  in  French, 
but  what  does  that  matter?  We  can  express  the 
Canadian  spirit  just  as  well  in  that  language."  So 
said  a  very  vivid  and  practical  little  nun  to  me,  and 
she  was  anxious  that  England  should  realize  how 
dear  they  felt  the  bond. 

The  Prince's  afternoon  "  off  "  was  spent  out  of 
Quebec  at  the  beautiful  village  of  St.  Anne's 
Beaupre,  where,  set  in  lovely  surroundings,  there  is 
a  miraculous  shrine  to  St.  Anne.  The  Prince  visited 
the  beautiful  basilica,  and  saw  the  forest  of  sticks 


82    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

and  crutches  left  behind  as  tokens  of  their  cure  by 
generations  of  sufferers. 

News  of  his  visit  had  got  abroad,  and  when  he 
left  the  shrine  in  company  of  the  clergy,  he  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  big  crowd  who  restricted  all  movement 
by  their  cheerful  importunity.  A  local  photo- 
grapher, rising  to  the  occasion,  refused  to  let  His 
Royal  Highness  escape  until  he  had  taken  an  historic 
snap.  Not  merely  a  snap  of  the  Prince  and  the 
priests  with  him,  but  of  as  many  of  the  citizens  of 
Beaupre  as  he  could  get  into  a  wide  angle  lense. 
This  was  a  tremendous  occasion,  and  he  yelled  at  the 
top  of  his  voice  to  the  people  to : 

"  Come  and  be  photographed  with  the  Prince. 
Come  and  be  taken  with  your  future  King." 

Taken  with  their  future  King,  the  people  of 
Beaupre  were  entirely  disinclined  to  let  him  go. 
They  crowded  round  him  so  that  it  was  only  force 
that  enabled  his  entourage  to  clear  a  tactful  way  to 
his  car.  Even  in  the  car  the  driver  found  himself 
faced  with  all  the  opportunities  of  the  chauffeur 
of  the  Juggernaut  with  none  of  his  convictions.  The 
car  was  hemmed  in  by  the  crowd,  and  the  crowd 
would  not  give  way. 

It  is  possible  that  at  this  jolly  crisis  somebody 
mentioned  the  Prince's  need  for  tea,  and  at  the  men- 
tion of  this  solemn  and  inexplicable  British  rite  the 
crowd  gave  way,  and  the  car  got  free. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  MOBILE  HOTEL  DE  LUXE:  THE  ROYAL 

TRAIN 


ON  Sunday,  August  24th,  His  Royal  Highness 
came  under  the  sway  of  that  benevolent 
despot  in  the  Kingdom  of  Efficiency,  the 
Canadian  Pacific  Railway. 

He  motored  out  along  a  road  that  Quebec  Is  proud 
of,  because  it  has  a  reputable  surface  for  automobiles 
in  a  world  of  natural  earth  tracks,  through  delight- 
ful country  to  a  small  station  which  a  Gallic  air. 
Three  Rivers.     Here  he  boarded  the  Royal  Train. 

It  was  a  remarkable  train.  Not  merely  did  its 
construction,  length,  tonnage  and  ultimate  mileage 
set  up  new  records,  but  in  it  the  idealist's  dream  of 
perfection  in  travelling  came  true. 

It  might  be  truer  to  say  the  Royal  Party  did  not 
take  the  train.  It  took  them.  As  each  member  of 
the  party  mounted  into  his  compartment,  or  Pull- 
man car,  he  at  once  ceased  to  concern  himself  with 
his  own  well-being.  To  think  of  oneself  was  un- 
necessary. The  C.P.R.  had  not  only  arranged  to 
do  the  thinking,  but  had  also  arranged  to  do  It  bet- 
ter. 

The  exterHal  facts  concerning  the  train  were  but 
a  part  of  Its  wonder.  And  the  minor  part.  It  was 
the  largest  train  of  its  kind  to  accomplish  so  great 


84    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

a  single  run  —  it  weighed  over  a  thousand  tons,  and 
travelled  nearly  ten  thousand  miles.  It  was  a  fifth 
of  a  mile  in  length.  Its  ten  splendid  cars  were  all 
steel.  Some  of  them  were  ordinary  sleepers,  some 
were  compartment  and  drawing-room  cars.  Those 
for  the  Prince  and  his  Staff  were  sumptuous  private 
cars  with  state-rooms,  dining-rooms,  kitchens,  bath- 
rooms, and  cosy  observation  rooms  and  platforms, 
beautifully  fitted  and  appointed. 

The  train  was  a  modern  hotel  strayed  accidentally 
on  to  wheels.  It  had  its  telephone  system;  its  own 
electricity;  its  own  individually  controlled  central 
heat.  It  had  a  laundry  service  for  its  passengers, 
and  its  valets  always  on  the  spot  to  renew  the  crease 
of  youth  in  all  trousers.  It  had  its  own  newspaper, 
or,  rather,  bulletin,  by  which  all  on  board  learnt  the 
news  of  the  external  world  tAvice  a  day,  no  matter 
in  what  wild  spot  the  train  happened  to  be.  It  had 
its  dark-room  for  photographers,  its  dispensary  for 
the  doctor  and  its  untiring  telegraph  expert  to  handle 
all  wired  messages,  including  the  correspondents* 
cables.  It  had  its  dining-rooms  and  kitchens  and 
its  staff  of  first-class  chefs,  who  worked  miracles  of 
cuisine  in  the  small  space  of  their  kitchen,  giving 
over  a  hundred  people  three  meals  a  day  that  no 
hotel  in  London  could  exceed  in  style,  and  no  hotel 
in  England  could  hope  to  equal  in  abundance. 
It  carried  baggage,  and  transferred  it  to  Government 
Houses  or  hotels,  and  transferred  it  back  to  its  cars 
and  baggage  vans  in  a  manner  so  perfect  that  one 
came  to  look  upon  the  matter  almost  as  a  process  of 
nature,  and  not  as  a  breathless  phenomenon. 


The  Mobile  Hotel  De  Luxe        85 

It  was  the  train  de  luxe,  but  It  was  really  more 
than  that.  It  was  a  train  handled  by  experts  from 
'Mr,  A.  B.  Calder,  who  represented  the  President  of 
the  Company,  down  to  the  cleaning  boy,  who  swept 
up  the  cars,  and  they  were  experts  of  a  curious  qual- 
ity of  their  own. 

Whatever  the  Canadian  Pacific  Railway  is  (and  it 
has  its  critics),  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  as  an 
organization,  it  captures  the  loyalty,  as  it  calls  forth 
ail  the  keenness  and  ability  of  its  servants.  It  Is 
something  that  quickens  their  Imagination  and  stimu- 
lates their  enthusiasm.  There  was  something  warm 
and  invigorating  about  the  way  each  man  set  up 
within  himself  a  counsel  of  perfection  —  which  he 
Intended  to  exceed.  Walters,  negro  car  porters, 
brakemen,  secretaries  —  every  man  on  that  staff  of 
sixty  odd  determined  that  his  department  was  going 
to  be  a  living  example,  not  of  what  he  could  do,  but 
of  what  the  C.P.R.  could  do. 

The  esprit  de  corps  was  remarkable.  Mr.  Calder 
told  us  at  the  end  of  the  trip  that  as  far  as  the  staff 
working  of  the  train  was  concerned  he  need  not  have 
been  In  control.  He  had  not  Issued  a  single  order, 
nor  a  single  reprimand  In  the  three  months.  The 
men  knew  their  work  perfectly;  they  did  It  perfectly. 

When  one  thinks  of  a  great  organization  animated 
from  the  lowest  worker  to  the  President  by  so  lively 
and  extraordinarily  human  a  spirit  of  loyalty  that 
each  worker  finds  delight  In  improving  on  Instruc- 
tions, one  must  admit  that  it  has  the  elements  of 
greatness  In  It. 

My  own  impression  after  seeing  it  working  and 


86    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

the  work  it  has  done,  after  seeing  the  difficulties  it 
has  conquered,  the  districts  it  has  opened  up,  the 
towns  it  has  brought  into  being,  is  that,  as  an  or- 
ganization, the  Canadian  Pacific  Railway  is  great, 
not  merely  as  a  trading  concern,  but  as  an  Empire- 
building  factor.  Its  vision  has  been  big  beyond  its 
own  needs,  and  the  Dominion  today  owes  not  a  little 
to  the  great  men  of  the  C.P.R.,  who  were  big- 
minded  enough  to  plan,  not  only  for  themselves,  but 
also  for  all  Canada. 

And  the  big  men  are  still  alive.  In  Quebec  we 
had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  Lord  Shaughnessy, 
whose  acute  mind  was  the  very  soul  of  the  C.P.R. 
until  he  retired  from  the  Presidency  a  short  time  ago, 
and  Mr.  Edward  W.  Beatty,  who  has  succeeded 
him. 

Lord  Shaughnessy  may  be  a  retired  lion,  but  he  is 
by  no  means  a  dead  one.  A  quiet  man  of  powerful 
silences,  whose  eyes  can  be  ruthless,  and  his  lips 
wise.  A  man  who  appears  disembodied  on  first  in- 
troduction, for  one  overlooks  the  rest  of  him  under 
the  domination  of  his  head  and  eyes. 

The  best  description  of  Mr.  Beatty  lies  in  the  first 
question  one  wants  to  ask  him,  which  is,  "  Are  you 
any  relation  to  the  Admiral?  " 

The  likeness  is  so  remarkable  that  one  is  sure  it 
cannot  be  accidental.  It  is  accidental,  and  there- 
fore more  remarkable.  It  is  the  Admiral's  face 
down  to  the  least  detail  of  feature,  though  it  is  a 
trifle  younger.  There  is  the  same  neat,  jaunty  air 
—  there  is  even  the  same  cock  of  the  hat  over  the 
same   eye.     There   is   the   same   sense   of  compact 


The  Mobile  Hotel  De  Luxe        87 

power  concealed  by  the  same  spirit  of  whimsical 
dare-devilry.  There  is  the  same  capacity,  the  same 
nattiness,  the  same  humanness.  There  is  the  same 
sense  of  abnormality  that  a  man  looking  so  young 
should  command  an  organization  so  enormous,  and 
the  same  recognition  that  he  is  just  the  man  to  do  it. 

Both  these  men  are  impressive.  They  are  big 
men,  but  then  so  are  all  the  men  who  have  control 
in  the  C.P.R.  They  are  more  than  that,  they  can 
inspire  other  men  with  their  own  big  spirit.  We  met 
many  heads  of  departments  in  the  C.P.R. ,  and  we 
felt  that  in  all  was  the  same  quality.  Mr.  Calder, 
as  he  began,  "  A.  B."  as  he  soon  became,  was  the 
one  we  came  in  contact  with  most,  and  he  was  typical 
of  his  service. 

**  A.  B."  was  not  merely  our  good  angel,  but  our 
good  friend  from  the  first.  Not  merely  did  he 
smooth  the  way  for  us,  but  he  made  it  the  jolliest 
and  most  cheery  way  in  the  world.  He  is  a  bundle 
of  strange  qualities,  all  good.  He  is  Puck,  with 
the  brain  of  an  administrator.  The  king  of  story 
tellers,  with  an  unfaltering  instinct  for  organization. 
A  poet,  and  a  mimic  and  a  born  comedian,  plus  a 
will  that  is  never  flurried,  a  diplomacy  that  nevej 
rasps,  and  a  capacity  for  the  routine  of  railway  work 
that  is  —  C.P.R.  A  man  of  big  heart,  big  human- 
ness, and  big  ability,  whom  we  all  loved  and  valued 
from  the  first  meeting. 

And,  over  all,  he  is  a  C.P.R.  man,  the  type  of  man 
that  organization  finds  service  for,  and  is  best  served 
by  them;  an  example  that  did  most  to  impress  us 
with  a  sense  of  the  organization's  greatness. 


88    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

II 

If  I  have  written  much  concerning  the  C.P.R.,  it 
is  because  I  feel  that,  under  the  personality  of  His 
Royal  Highness  himself,  the  success  of  the  tour 
owes  much  to  the  care  and  efficiency  that  organiza- 
tion exerted  throughout  its  course,  and  also  because 
for  three  months  the  C.P.R.  train  was  our  home  and 
the  backbone  of  everything  we  did.  If  you  like, 
that  is  the  chief  tribute  to  the  organization.  We 
spent  three  months  confined  more  or  less  to  a  single 
carriage;  we  travelled  over  all  kinds  of  line  and 
country,  and  under  all  manner  of  conditions;  and 
after  those  three  long  months  we  left  the  train  still 
impressed  by  the  C.P.R. ,  still  warm  in  our  friendship 
for  it  —  perhaps,  indeed,  warmer  in  our  regard. 

There  are  not  many  railways  that  could  stand 
that  continuous  test. 

Of  the  ten  cars  in  the  train,  the  Prince  of  Wales 
occupied  the  last,  "  Killarney,"  a  beautiful  car, 
eighty-two  feet  long,  its  interior  finished  in  satin- 
wood,  and  beautifully  lighted  by  the  indirect  system. 
The  Prince  had  his  bedroom,  with  an  ordinary  bed, 
dining-room  and  bathroom.  There  was  a  kitchen 
and  pantry  for  his  special  chef.  The  observation 
compartment  was  a  drawing-room  with  settees,  and 
arm-chairs  and  a  gramophone,  while  in  addition  to 
to  the  broad  windows  there  was  a  large,  brass-railed 
platform  at  the  rear,  upon  which  he  could  sit  and 
watch  the  scenery  (search-lights  helped  him  at 
night),  and  from  which  he  held  a  multitude  of  im- 
promptu receptions. 


The  Mobile  Hotel  De  Luxe        89 

"  Cromarty,"  another  beautiful  car,  was  occupied 
by  the  personal  Staff;  "Empire,"  "Chinook"  and 
"  Chester  "  by  personal  and  C.P.R.  staff.  The  next 
car,  "  Canada,"  was  the  beautiful  dining  car;  "  Car- 
narvon," the  next,  a  sleeping  car,  was  occupied  by  the 
correspondents  and  photographers;  "  Renown"  be- 
longed to  the  particularly  efficient  C.P.R.  police, 
who  went  everywhere  with  the  train,  and  patrolled 
the  track  if  it  stopped  at  night.  In  front  of  "  Re- 
nown "  were  two  baggage  cars  with  the  225  pieces 
of  baggage  the  retinue  carried. 

At  Three  Rivers  a  very  cheery  crowd  wished  His 
Royal  Highness  bon  voyage.  The  whole  town 
turned  out,  and  over-ran  the  pretty  grass  plot  that 
is  a  feature  in  every  Canadian  station,  in  order  to  see 
the  Prince. 

We  ran  steadily  down  the  St.  Lawrence  through 
pretty  country  towards  Toronto.  All  the  stations 
we  passed  were  crowded,  and  though  the  train  In- 
variably went  through  at  a  good  pace  that  did  not 
seem  to  matter  to  the  people,  though  they  had  come 
a  long  distance  In  order  to  catch  just  this  fleeting 
glimpse  of  the  train  that  carried  him. 

Sometimes  the  train  stopped  for  water,  or  to 
change  engines  at  the  end  of  the  section  of  133 
miles.  The  people  then  gathered  about  the  rear  of 
the  train,  and  the  Prince  had  an  opportunity  of  chat- 
ting with  them  and  shaking  hands  with  many. 

At  some  halts  he  left  the  train  to  stroll  on  the 
platform,  and  on  these  occasions  he  invariably  talked 
with  the  crowd,  and  gave  "  candies  "  to  the  children. 
There  was  no  difficulty  at  all  in  approaching  him. 


90    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

At  one  tiny  place,  Outremont,  one  woman  came  to 
him,  and  said  that  she  felt  she  already  knew  him, 
because  her  husband  had  met  him  in  France.  That 
fact  immediately  moved  the  Prince  to  sympathy. 
Not  only  did  he  spend  some  minutes  talking  with 
her,  but  he  made  a  point  of  referring  to  the  incident 
in  his  speech  at  Toronto  the  next  day,  to  emphasize 
the  feeling  he  was  experiencing  of  having  come  to  a 
land  that  was  almost  his  own,  thanks  to  his  com- 
radeship with  Canadians  overseas. 

Not  only  during  the  day  was  the  whole  route  of 
the  train  marked  by  crowds  at  stations,  and  individ- 
ual groups  in  the  countryside,  but  even  during  the 
night  these  crowds  and  groups  were  there. 

As  we  swept  along  there  came  through  the  win- 
dows of  our  sleeping-car  the  ghosts  of  cheers,  as  a 
crowd  on  a  station  or  a  gathering  at  a  crossing 
saluted  the  train.  The  cheer  was  gone  in  the  dis- 
tance as  soon  as  it  came,  but  to  hear  these  cheers 
through  the  night  was  to  be  impressed  by  the  gener- 
osity and  loyalty  of  these  people.  They  had  stayed 
up  late,  they  had  even  travelled  far  to  give  one  cheer 
only.  But  they  had  thought  it  worth  while.  Mon- 
treal, which  we  passed  through  in  the  dark,  woke  us 
with  a  hearty  salute  that  ran  throughout  the  length 
of  our  passing  through  that  great  city,  and  so  it  went 
on  through  the  night  and  into  the  morning,  when  we 
woke  to  find  ourselves  slipping  along  the  shores  of 
Lake  Ontario  and  into  the  outskirts  of  Toronto. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    CITY   OF    CROWDS.      TORONTO:   ONTARIO 


TORONTO  is  a  city  of  many  names.  You 
can  call  it  "  The  Boston  of  Canada,"  be- 
cause of  its  aspiration  to  literature,  the 
theatre  and  the  arts.  You  can  call  it  "  The  Second 
City  of  Canada,"  because  the  fact  is  incontestable. 
You  can  call  it  "  The  Queen  City,"  because  others 
do,  though,  like  the  writer,  you  are  unable  to  find 
the  reason  why  you  should.  You  can  say  of  it,  as 
the  Westerners  do,  "Oh — Toronto!  "  with  very 
much  the  same  accent  that  the  British  dramatist 
reserves  for  the  censor  of  plays.  But  though  it  al- 
ready had  its  host  of  names,  Toronto,  to  us,  was 
the  City  of  Crowds. 

Toronto  has  interests  and  beauties.  It  has  its 
big,  natural  High  Park.  It  has  its  charming  resi- 
dential quarters  in  Rosedale  and  on  The  Hill.  It 
has  its  beautiful  lagoon  on  the  lakeside.  It  has  its 
Yonge  Street,  forty  miles  straight.  It  has  the  tallest 
building  in  the  Empire,  and  some  of  the  largest 
stores  in  the  Empire.  It  is  busy  and  bright  and 
brisk.  But  we  found  we  could  not  see  it  for  crowds. 
Or,  rather,  a4:  first  we  could  not  see  it  for  crowds. 
Later  a  good  Samaritan  took  us  for  a  pell-mell  tour 
in  a  motor-car,  and  we  saw  a  chauffeur's  eye  view  of 

91 


92    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

it.  Even  then  we  saw  much  of  it  over  the  massed 
soft  hats  of  Canada. 

We  had  become  inured  to  crowds.  We  had  seen 
big,  busthng,  eager,  hearty,  good-humoured  throngs 
from  St.  John's  to  Quebec.  But  even  that  hardening 
had  not  proofed  us  against  the  mass  and  enthusias- 
tic violence  of  the  crowd  that  Toronto  turned  out  to 
greet  the  Prince,  and  continued  to  turn  out  to  meet 
him  during  the  days  he  was  there. 

On  the  early  morning  of  Monday,  August  25th,  in 
that  weather  that  was  already  being  called  "  Prince 
of  Wales'  weather,"  the  Prince  stepped  "  ashore  " 
at  the  Government  House  siding,  outside  Toronto. 
There  was  a  skirmishing  line  of  the  waiting  city 
flung  out  to  this  distant  station  —  including  some 
go-ahead  flappers  with  autograph  books  to  sign.  It 
was,  however,  one  of  those  occasions  when  the  Prince 
was  considered  to  be  wrapped  in  a  robe  of  invisibility 
until  he  had  been  to  Government  House  and  started 
from  there  to  drive  inland  to  the  city  and  its  recep- 
tions. 

A  quick  automobile  rush  —  and,  by  the  way,  it 
will  be  noticed  that  the  Continent  of  Hustle  always 
uses  the  long  word  for  the  short,  "  automobile  "  for 
"car,"  "elevator"  for  "lift,"  and  so  on  —  to  the 
Government  House,  placed  the  Prince  on  a  legal 
footing,  and  he  was  ready  to  enter  the  city. 

Government  House  is  remarkable  for  the  fact  that 
it  grew  a  garden  in  a  single  night.  It  is  a  comely 
building  of  rough-dressed  stone,  standing  in  the  park- 
like surroundings  of  the  Rosedale  suburb,  but  in  the 
absence  of  princes  its  forecourt  is  merely  a  desert 


The  City  of  Crowds  93 

of  grey  stone  granules.  When  His  Royal  Highness 
arrived  it  was  a  garden  of  an  almost  brilliant  abun- 
dance. There  were  green  lawns,  great  beds  packed 
wantonly  with  the  brightest  flowers,  while  trees, 
palms  and  flowering  shrubs  crowded  the  square  in 
luxuriance.  A  marvel  of  a  garden.  A  realist 
policeman,  after  his  first  gasp,  bent  down  to  examine 
the  green  of  the  lawn,  and  rose  with  a  Kipps  expres- 
sion on  his  face  and  with  the  single  word  "  Fake  " 
on  his  lips. 

The  vivid  lawn  was  green  cocoanut  matting,  the 
beds  were  cunning  arrangements  of  flowers  in  pots, 
and  from  pots  the  trees  and  shrubs  flourished.  It 
was  a  garden  artificial  and  even  more  marvellous 
than  we  had  thought. 

The  Prince  rode  through  Rosedale  to  the  town. 
The  crowd  began  outside  Government  House  gates. 
It  was  a  polite  and  brightly  dressed  crowd,  for  it 
was  drawn  from  the  delightful  houses  that  made 
islands  in  the  uninterrupted  lawns  that,  with  the 
graceful  trees,  formed  the  borders  of  the  winding 
roads  through  which  he  went.  Rosedale  was  once 
forest  on  the  shores  of  the  old  Ontario  Lake;  the 
lake  has  receded  three  miles  and  more,  but  the 
builders  of  the  city  have  dealt  kindly  with  the  forest, 
and  have  touched  it  as  little  as  they  could,  so  that 
the  old  trees  blend  with  the  modern  lawns  to  give 
the  new  homes  an  air  of  infinite  charm. 

As  the  Prince  drove  deeper  into  the  city  the  crowds 
thickened,  so  that  when  he  arrived  in  the  virile,  pur- 
poseful commercial  streets,  the  sidewalks  could  no 
longer  contain  the  mass.     They  are  broad  and  effi- 


94    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

cient  streets,  striking  through  the  town  arrow- 
straight,  and  giving  to  the  eye  superb  vistas.  But 
broad  though  they  were,  they  could  not  accommo- 
date sightseeing  Toronto,  and  the  crowd  encroached 
upon  the  driveway,  much  to  the  disgust  of  many 
little  boys,  who,  with  their  race's  contempt  for  death 
by  automobile,  were  running  or  cycling  beside  the 
Royal  car  in  their  determination  to  get  the  maximum 
of  Prince  out  of  a  short  visit. 

The  crowd  went  upward  from  the  roadway  also. 
We  had  come  into  our  first  city  of  sky-climbing  build- 
ings. One  of  these  shoots  up  some  twenty  stories, 
but  though  this  is  the  tallest  "  yet,"  it  is  surrounded 
by  some  considerable  neighbours  that  give  the  streets 
great  ranges  upwards  as  well  as  forward.  The 
windows  of  these  great  buildings  were  packed  with 
people,  and  through  the  canopy  of  flags  that  fluttered 
on  all  the  route  they  sent  down  their  cheers  to  join 
the  welcome  on  the  ground  floor. 

It  was  through  such  crowds  that  the  Prince  drove 
to  a  greater  crowd  that  was  gathered  about  the 
Parliament  Buildings. 


II 

The  site  of  the  Provincial  Parliament  Buildings  is, 
as  with  all  these  Western  cities,  very  beautifully 
planned.  It  is  set  in  the  gracious  Queen's  Park,  that 
forms  an  avenue  of  green  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
town.  About  the  park  are  the  buildings  of  Toronto 
University,  and  the  avenue  leads  down  to  the  digni- 
fied old  law  schools  at  Osgoode  Hall.     The  Cana- 


The  City  of  Crowds  95 

dians  show  a  sense  of  appropriate  artistry  always  in 
the  grouping  of  their  public  buildings  —  although,  of 
course,  they  have  had  the  advantage  of  beginning 
before  ground-rents  and  other  interests  grew  too 
strong  for  public  endeavour. 

The  Parliament  Buildings  are  of  a  ruddy  sand- 
stone, in  a  style  slightly  railway-station  Renaissance. 
They  were  draped  with  flags  down  to  the  vivid 
striped  platform  before  the  building  upon  which  the 
reception  was  held.  Great  masses  of  people  and 
many  ranks  of  soldiers  filled  the  lawns  before  the 
platform,  while  to  the  right  was  a  great  flower-bed 
of  infants.  A  grand-stand  was  brimming  over  with 
school-kiddies  ready  to  cheer  at  the  slightest  hint,  to 
sing  at  command,  and  to  wave  flags  at  all  times. 

It  was  a  bustling  reception  from  Toronto  as  par- 
liamentary capital  of  Ontario,  and  from  Toronto 
the  town.  It  was  packed  full  of  speeches  and  sing- 
ing from  the  children  and  from  a  Welsh  choir  —  and 
Canada  flowers  Welsh  choirs  —  and  presentations 
from  many  societies,  whose  members,  wearing  the 
long  silk  buttonhole  tabs  stamped  with  the  gold  title 
of  the  guild  or  committee  to  which  they  belonged, 
came  forward  to  augment  the  press  on  the  platform. 

These  silk  tabs  are  an  insignia  of  Canadian  life. 
The  Canadians  have  an  infinite  capacity  for  forming 
themselves  into  committees,  and  clubs,  and  orders  of 
stout  fellows,  and  all  manner  of  gregarious  associa- 
tions. And  when  any  association  shows  itself  in  the 
sunlight,  it  distinguishes  itself  by  tagging  its  mem- 
bers with  long,  coloured  silk  tabs.  We  never  went 
out  of  sight  of  tabs  on  the  whole  of  our  trip. 


96    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

From  the  Parliament  Buildings  the  Prince  drove 
through  the  packed  town  to  the  Exhibition  ground. 
We  passed  practically  through  the  whole  of  the  city 
in  these  two  journeys,  travelling  miles  of  streets, 
yet  all  the  way  the  mass  of  people  was  dense  to  a 
remarkable  degree.  Toronto,  we  knew,  was  sup- 
posed to  have  a  population  of  500,000  people,  but 
long  before  we  reached  the  end  of  the  drive  we  be- 
gan to  wonder  how  the  city  could  possibly  keep  up 
the  strength  on  the  pavements  without  running  out 
of  inhabitants.  It  not  only  kept  it  up,  but  it  sprang 
upon  us  the  amazing  sight  of  the  Exhibition  ground. 

In  this  long  and  wonderful  drive  there  was  but 
one  stop.  This  was  at  the  City  Hall,  a  big,  rough 
stone  building  with  a  soaring  campanile.  On  the 
broad  steps  of  the  hall  a  host  of  wounded  men  in 
blue  were  grouped,  as  though  in  a  grand-stand. 
The  string  of  cars  swerved  aside  so  that  the  Prince 
could  stop  for  a  few  minutes  and  chat  with  the  men. 

His  reception  here  was  of  overwhelming  warmth; 
men  with  all  manner  of  hurts,  men  on  crutches  and 
in  chairs  stood  up,  or  tried  to  stand  up,  to  cheer  him. 
It  was  in  the  truest  sense  a  meeting  of  comrades, 
and  when  a  one-legged  soldier  asked  the  Prince  to 
pose  for  a  photograph,  he  did  it  not  merely  willingly, 
but  with  a  jolly  and  personal  friendliness. 

The  long  road  to  the  Exhibition  passed  through 
the  busy  manufacturing  centre  that  has  made 
Toronto  famous  and  rich  as  a  trading  city,  particu- 
larly as  a  trading  city  from  which  agricultural  ma- 
chinery is  produced.  The  Exhibition  itself  is  part 
of  its  great  commercial  enterprise.     It  is  the  focus 


The  City  of  Crowds  97 

for  the  whole  of  Ontario,  and  perhaps  for  the  whole 
of  Eastern  Canada,  of  all  that  is  up-to-date  in  the 
science  of  production.  In  the  beautiful  grounds  that 
lie  along  the  fringe  of  the  inland  sea  that  men  have, 
for  convenience'  sake,  called  Lake  Ontario,  and  in 
fine  buildings  in  those  grounds  are  gathered  together 
exhibits  of  machinery,  textiles,  timber,  seeds,  cattle, 
and  in  fact  everything  concerned  with  the  work  of 
men  in  cities  or  on  prairies,  in  offices  or  factories, 
farms  or  orchards. 

The  Exhibition  was  breaking  records  for  its 
visitors  already,  and  the  presence  of  the  Prince  en- 
abled it  to  break  more.  The  vastness  of  the  crowd 
in  the  grounds  was  aweing.  The  gathering  of  peo- 
ple simply  obliterated  the  grass  of  the  lawns  and 
clogged  the  roads. 

When  His  Royal  Highness  had  lunched  with  the 
administrators  of  the  Exhibition,  he  came  out  to  a 
bandstand  and  publicly  declared  the  grounds  opened. 
The  crowd  was  not  merely  thick  about  the  stand,  but 
its  more  venturesome  members  climbed  up  among  the 
committee  and  the  camera-men,  the  latter  working  so 
strenuously  and  in  such  numbers  that  they  gave  the 
impression  that  they  not  only  photographed  every 
mov^ement,  but  also  every  word  the  Prince  uttered. 

The  density  of  the  crowd  made  retreat  a  problem. 
Police  and  Staff  had  to  resolve  themselves  into  human 
Tanks,  and  press  a  way  by  inches  through  the  enthu- 
siastic throng  to  the  car.  The  car  itself  was  sur- 
rounded, and  could  only  move  at  a  crawl  along  the 
roads,  and  so  slow  was  the  going  and  so  lively  was 
the  friendliness  of  the  people,  that  His  Royal  High- 


98    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

ness  once  and  for  all  threw  saluting  overboard  as  a 
gesture  entirely  inadequate,  and  gave  his  response 
with  a  waving  hand.  The  infection  of  goodwill, 
too,  had  caught  hold  of  him,  and  not  satisfied  with 
his  attitude,  he  sprang  up  in  the  car  and  waved  stand- 
ing. In  this  manner,  and  with  one  of  his  Staff  hold- 
ing him  by  the  belt,  he  drove  through  and  out  of 
the  grounds. 

It  was  a  day  so  packed  with  extraordinary  crowds, 
that  we  correspondents  grew  hopeless  before  them. 
We  despaired  of  being  able  to  convey  adequately  a 
sense  of  what  was  happening;  "  enthusiasm  "  was  a 
hard-driven  word  that  day  and  during  the  next  two, 
and  we  would  have  given  the  world  to  find  another 
for  a  change. 

Since  I  returned  I  have  heard  sceptical  people  say 
that  the  stories  of  these  "  great  receptions  "  were 
vamped-up  affairs,  mere  newspaper  manufacture.  I 
would  like  to  have  had  some  of  those  sceptics  in 
Toronto  with  us  on  August  25th,  26th  and  27th.  It 
w^ould  have  taught  them  a  very  convincing  and  stir- 
ring lesson. 

The  crowds  of  the  Exhibition  ground  were  fol- 
lowed by  crowds  at  the  Public  Reception,  an  "  extra  " 
which  the  Prince  himself  had  added  to  his  pro- 
gram. This  was  held  at  the  City  Hall.  It  had 
all  the  characteristics  of  these  democratic  and  popu- 
lar receptions,  only  it  was  bigger.  Policemen  had 
been  drawn  about  the  City  Hall,  but  when  the  peo- 
ple decided  to  go  in,  the  police  mattered  very  little. 
They  were  submerged  by  a  sea  of  men  and  women 
that  swept  over  them,  swept  up  the  big  flight  of 


The  City  of  Crowds  99 

steps  and  engulfed  the  Prince  in  a  torrent,  every 
individual  particle  of  which  was  bent  on  shaking 
hands.  It  was  a  splendidly-tempered  crowd,  but  it 
was  determined  upon  that  handshake.  And  it  had 
it.  It  was  at  Toronto  that,  as  the  Prince  phrased 
it,  "  My  right  hand  was  '  done  in.'  "  This  was  how 
Toronto  did  it  in. 

Ill 

The  visit  was  not  all  strenuous  affection.  There 
were  quiet  backwaters  in  which  His  Royal  Highness 
obtained  some  rest,  golfing  and  dancing.  One  such 
moment  was  when  on  this  day  he  crossed  to  the 
Yacht  Club,  an  idyllic  place,  on  the  sandspit  that 
encloses  the  lagoon. 

This  club,  set  in  the  vividly  blue  waters  of  the 
great  lake,  is  a  little  gem  of  beauty  with  its  smooth 
lawns,  pretty  buildings  and  fine  trees.  It  is  even 
something  more,  for  every  handful  of  loam  on  which 
the  lawns  and  trees  grow  was  transported  from  the 
mainland  to  make  fruitful  the  arid  sand  of  the  spit. 
The  Prince  had  tea  on  the  lawn,  while  he  watched 
the  scores  of  brisk  little  boats  that  had  followed 
him  out  and  hung  about  awaiting  his  return  like  a 
genial  guard  of  honour. 

There  was  always  dancing  in  honour  of  the  Prince, 
and  always  a  great  deal  of  expectation  as  to  who 
would  be  the  lucky  partners.  His  partners,  as  I 
have  said,  had  their  photographs  published  in  the 
papers  the  next  day.  Even  those  who  were  not  so 
lucky  urged  their  cavaliers  to  keep  as  close  to  him 
as  possible  on  the  ball-room  floor,  so  every  inflexion 


100    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

of  the  Prince  could  be  watched,  though  not  all  were 
so  far  gone  as  an  adoring  young  thing  in  one  town 
(NOT  Toronto),  who  hung  on  every  movement, 
and  who  cried  to  her  partner  in  accents  of  awe: 

"  I've  heard  him  speak!  I've  heard  him  speak! 
He  says  '  Yes '  just  like  an  ordinary  man.  Isn't 
it  wonderful !  " 

On  Tuesday,  the  25th,  the  Yacht  Club  was  the 
scene  of  one  of  the  brightest  of  dances,  following  a 
very  happy  reunion  between  the  Prince  and  his  com- 
rades of  the  war.  Some  hundreds  of  officers  of  all 
grades  were  gathered  together  by  General  Gunn,  the 
CO.  of  the  District,  from  the  many  thousands  In 
Ontario,  and  these  entertained  the  Prince  at  din- 
ner at  the  Club.  It  was  a  gathering  both  significant 
and  impressive.  Every  one  of  the  officers  wore  not 
merely  the  medals  of  Overseas  service,  but  every 
one  wore  a  distinction  gained  on  the  field. 

It  was  an  epitome  of  Canada's  effort  in  the  war. 
It  was  a  collection  of  virile  young  men  drawn  from 
the  lawyer's  office  and  the  farm,  from  the  desk  in- 
doors and  avocations  in  the  open,  from  the  very  law 
schools  and  even  the  University  campus.  In  the 
big  dining-hall,  hung  with  scores  of  boards  in  Ger- 
man lettering,  trench-signs,  directing  posts  to  billets, 
drinking  water  and  the  like,  that  had  been  capture'd 
by  the  very  men  who  were  then  dining,  one  got  a 
sense  of  the  vivid  capacity  and  alertness  that  made 
Canada's  contribution  to  the  Empire  fighting  forces 
so  notable,  and  more,  that  will  make  Canada's  con- 
tribution to  the  future  of  the  world  so  notable. 

There  was  no  doubt,  too,  that,  though  these  self- 


The  City  of  Crowds  lOi 

assured  young  men  are  perfectly  competent  to  stand 
on  their  own  feet  in  all  circumstances,  their  visit  to 
the  Old  Country  —  or,  as  even  the  Canadian-born 
call  it,  "  Home  " —  has,  even  apart  from  the  lessons 
of  fighting,  been  useful  to  them,  and,  through  them, 
will  be  useful  to  Canada. 

*'  Leaves  in  England  were  worth  while,"  one  said. 
"  I've  come  back  here  with  a  new  sense  of  values. 
Canada's  a  great  country,  but  we  are  a  little  in  the 
rough.  We  can  teach  you  people  a  good  many 
things,  but  there  are  a  good  many  we  can  learn  from 
you.  We  haven't  any  tradition.  Oh,  not  all  your 
traditions  are  good  ones,  but  many  arc  worth  while. 
You  have  a  more  dignified  social  sense  than  we  have, 
and  a  political  sense  too.  And  you  have  a  ailture 
we  haven't  attained  yet.  You've  given  us  not  a 
standard  —  we  could  read  that  up  —  but  a  liking  for 
social  life,  bigger  politics,  books  and  pictures  and 
music,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing  that  we  had  missed 
here  —  and  been  quite  unaware  that  we  had 
missed." 

And  another  chimed  in: 

"  That's  what  we  miss  in  Canada,  the  theatres 
and  the  concerts  and  the  lectures,  and  the  whole 
boiling  of  a  good  time  we  had  in  London  —  the  big 
sense  of  being  Metropolitan  that  you  get  in  Eng- 
land, and  not  here.  Well,  not  yet.  We  were 
rather  prone  to  the  parish-pump  attitude  before  the 
war,  but  going  over  there  has  given  us  a  bigger  out- 
look. We  can  see  the  whole  world  now,  you  know. 
London's  a  great  place  —  it's  an  education  in  the 
citizenship  of  the  universe." 


102    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

That's  a  point,  too.  London  and  Britain  have 
been  revealed  to  them  as  friendly  places  and  the 
homes  of  good  friends  —  though  I  must  make  an 
exception  of  one  seaport  town  in  England  which  is 
a  byword  among  Canadians  for  bad  treatment. 
England  was  the  place  where  a  multitude  of  people 
conspired  to  give  the  Canadians  a  good  time,  and 
they  have  returned  with  a  practical  knowledge  of  the 
good  feeling  of  the  English,  and  that  is  bound  to 
make  for  mutual  understanding. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  Toronto.^ — or  other 
cities  in  Canada  —  is  without  theatres  or  places  of 
recreation.  There  are  several  good  theatres  and 
music-halls  in  Toronto  —  more  in  this  city  than  in 
any  other.  These  theatres  are  served  by  American 
companies  of  the  No.  i  touring  kind.  English 
actors  touring  America  usually  pay  the  city  a  visit, 
while  quite  frequently  new  plays  are  "  tried  out " 
here  before  opening  in  New  York. 

But  apart  from  a  repertory  company,  which 
plays  drawing-room  comedies  with  an  occasional 
dash  of  high-brow,  Toronto  and  Canada  depend  on 
outside,  that  is  American,  sources  for  the  theatre, 
and  though  the  standard  of  touring  companies  may 
be  high  in  the  big  Eastern  towns,  it  is  not  as  high  as 
it  should  be,  and  in  towns  further  West  the  shows 
are  of  that  rather  streaky  nature  that  one  connects 
with  theatrical  entertainment  at  the  British  seaside 
resorts. 

The  immense  distances  are  against  theatrical  en- 
terprises, of  course,  but  in  spite  of  them  one  has  a 
feeling  that  the  potentialities  of  the  theatre,  as  with 


The  City  of  Crowds  103 

everything  in  the  Dominion,  are  great  for  the  right 
man. 

Toronto  is  better  off  musically  than  other  cities, 
but  even  Toronto  depends  very  much  for  its  sym- 
phony and  its  vocal  concerts,  as  for  its  opera,  on 
America.  Music  is  intensely  popular,  and  gramo- 
phones, pianos  and  mechanical  piano-players  have  a 
great  sale. 

The  "  movie "  show  is  the  great  industry  of 
amusement  all  over  the  Dominion.  Even  the 
smallest  town  has  its  picture  palace,  the  larger  towns 
have  theatres  which  are  palaces  indeed  in  their  ap- 
pointments, and  a  multitude  of  them.  In  many  the 
'*  movie  "  show  is  judiciously  blended  with  vaude- 
ville turns,  a  mixture  which  seems  popular. 

Book  shops  are  rarities.  In  a  great  town  such 
as  Toronto  I  was  only  able  to  find  one  definite  book 
shop,  and  that  not  within  easy  walk  of  my  hotel. 
Even  that  shop  dealt  in  stationery  and  the  like  to 
help  things  along,  though  its  books  were  very  much 
up  to  date,  many  of  them  (by  both  English  and 
American  authors)  published  by  the  excellent 
Toronto  publishing  houses.  All  the  recognized 
leaders  among  English  and  American  writers,  and 
even  Admirals  and  Generals  turned  writers,  were  on 
sale,  though  the  popular  market  is  the  Zane  Grey 
type  of  book. 

The  reason  there  are  few  book  shops  is  that  the 
great  stores  —  like  Eaton's  and  Simpon's  —  have 
book  departments,  and  very  fine  ones  too,  and  that 
for  general  reading  the  Canadians  are  addicted  to 
newspapers  and  mazagines,  practically  all  the  latter 


104    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales. 

American,  which  are  on  sale  everywhere,  in  tobac- 
conists, drug  stores,  hotel  loggias,  and  on  special 
street  stands  generally  run  by  a  returned  soldier. 
English  papers  of  any  sort  are  rarely  seen  on  sale, 
though  all  the  big  American  dailies  are  common- 
place, while  only  occasionally  the  Windsor,  Strand, 
London,  and  the  new  Hutchinson's  Magazines 
shyly  rear  British  heads  over  their  clamorous  Amer- 
ican brothers. 

IV 

Tuesday,  August  26th,  was  a  day  dedicated  to 
quieter  functions.  The  Prince's  first  visits  were  to 
the  hospitals. 

Toronto,  which  likes  to  do  things  with  a  big  ges- 
ture, has  attacked  the  problem  of  hospital  building  in 
a  spacious  manner.  The  great  General  Hospital  is 
planned  throughout  to  give  an  air  of  roominess  and 
breadth. 

The  Canadians  certainly  show  a  sense  of  architec- 
ture, and  in  building  the  General  Hospital  they  re- 
fused to  follow  the  Morgue  School,  which  seems  to 
be  responsible  for  so  many  hospital  and  primary 
school  designs.  The  Toronto  Hospital  is  a  fine 
building  of  many  blocks  set  about  green  lawns,  and 
with  lawns  and  trees  in  the  quadrangles.  The  ap- 
pointments are  as  nearly  perfect  as  men  can  make 
them,  and  every  scientific  novelty  is  employed  in  the 
fight  against  wounds  and  sickness.  Hospitals  appear 
most  generally  used  in  Canada,  people  of  all  classes 
being  treated  there  for  Illnesses  that  in  Britain  are 
treated  at  home. 


The  City  of  Crowds  105* 

His  Royal  Highness  visited  and  explored  the  whole 
of  the  great  General  Hospital,  stopping  and  chatting 
with  as  many  of  the  wounded  soldiers  who  were  then 
housed  in  it,  as  time  allowed.  He  also  paid  a  visit  to 
the  Children's  Hospital  close  by.  This  was  an  item 
on  the  program  entirely  his  own.  Hearing  of  the 
hospital,  he  determined  to  visit  it,  having  first  paved 
the  way  for  his  visit  by  sending  the  kiddies  a  large 
assortment  of  toys.  This  hospital,  with  its  essen- 
tially modern  clinic,  was  thoroughly  explored  before 
the  Prince  left  in  a  mist  of  cheers  from  the  kiddies, 
whose  enormous  awe  had  melted  during  the  acquain- 
tance. 

The  afternoon  was  given  over  to  the  colourful 
ceremony  in  the  University  Hall,  when  the  LL.D. 
degree  of  the  University  was  bestowed  upon  His 
Royal  Highness.  In  a  great,  grey-stone  hall  that 
stands  on  the  edge  of  the  delightful  Queen's  Park, 
where  was  gathered  an  audience  of  dons  in  robes, 
and  ladies  in  bright  dresses,  with  naval  men  and  khaki 
men  to  bring  up  the  glowing  scheme,  the  Prince  in 
rose-coloured  robes  received  the  degree  and  signed 
the  roll  of  the  University.  Under  the  clear  light 
of  the  glass  roof  the  scene  had  a  dignity  and  charm 
that  placed  it  high  among  the  striking  pictures  of  the 
tour. 

It  was  a  quieter  day,  but,  nevertheless,  it  was  a 
day  of  crowds  also,  the  people  thronging  all  the 
routes  in  their  unabatable  numbers,  showing  that 
crescendo  of  friendliness  which  was  to  reach  its  great- 
est strength  on  the  next  day. 


io6    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 


The  crowds  of  Toronto,  already  astonishing,  went 
beyond  mere  describing  on  Wednesday,  August  27th. 

There  were  several  functions  set  down  for  this 
day;  only  two  matter:  the  review  of  the  War  Veter- 
ans in  the  Exhibition  grounds,  and  the  long  drive 
through  the  residential  areas  of  the  city. 

Some  hint  of  what  the  crowd  in  the  Exhibition 
grounds  was  like  was  given  to  us  as  we  endeavoured 
to  wriggle  our  car  through  the  masses  of  other  auto- 
mobiles, mobile  or  parked,  that  crowded  the  way 
to  the  grounds.  We  had  already  been  impressed 
by  the  almost  inordinate  number  of  motor-cars  in 
Canada :  the  number  of  cars  in  Toronto  terrified 
us. 

When  we  looked  on  the  thousands  of  cars  In  the 
city  we  knew  why  the  streets  had  to  be  broad  and 
straight  and  long.  In  no  other  way  could  they  ac- 
commodate all  that  rushing  traffic  of  the  swift  cars 
and  the  lean,  torpedo-like  trams  that  with  a  splendid 
service  link  up  the  heart  of  the  town  with  the  far  out- 
lying suburbs.  And  even  though  the  streets  are  broad 
the  automobile  is  becoming  too  much  for  them.  The 
habit  of  parking  cars  on  the  slant  and  by  scores  on 
both  sides  of  the  roadway  (as  well  as  down  side 
roads  and  on  vacant  "lots")  is  already  restricting 
the  carriage-way  in  certain  areas. 

From  the  cars  themselves  there  is  less  danger  than 
in  the  London  streets,  for  the  rules  of  the  road  are 
strict,  and  the  citizens  keep  them  strictly.  No  car  is 
allowed  to  pass  a  standing  tram  on  the  same  side,  for 


The  City  of  Crowds  107 

example,  and  that  rule  with  others  is  obeyed  by  all 
drivers. 

The  multitude  of  cars,  mainly  open  touring  cars 
of  the  Buick  and  Overland  type,  though  there  are 
many  Fords,  or  "  flivvers,"  and  an  occasional  Rolls- 
Royce,  Napier  or  Panhard,  thickened  as  we  neared 
the  Exhibition  gates;  and  about  them,  in  the  side 
streets  outside  and  in  the  avenues  inside,  they  were 
parked  by  thousands. 

They  gave  the  meanest  indication  of  the  numbers 
of  people  in  the  grounds.  The  lawns  were  covered 
with  people.  The  halls  of  exhibits  were  full  of  peo- 
ple. The  Joy  City,  where  one  can  adventure  into 
strange  thrills  from  Coney  Island,  was  full;  the 
booths  selling  buttered  corn  cob,  toasted  pea-nuts,  ice 
cream  soda,  and  the  rest,  had  hundreds  of  customers 
—  and  all  these,  we  found,  were  the  overflow.  They 
had  been  crowded  out  from  the  real  show,  and  were 
waiting  outside  in  the  hope  of  catching  sight  of  the 
Prince  as  he  made  his  round  of  the  Exhibition. 

The  show  ground  of  the  Exhibition  is  a  huge 
arena.  It  is  faced  by  a  mighty  grandstand,  seating 
ten  thousand  people.  Ten  thousand  people  were 
sitting:  the  imagination  bo'ggles  at  the  computation 
of  the  number  of  those  standing;  they  filled  every 
foothold  and  clung  to  every  step  and  projection. 
There  were  some  —  men  in  khaki,  of  course  —  who 
were  risking  their  necks  high  up  on  the  iron  roof  of 
the  stand. 

In  front  of  the  stand  is  a  great  open  space,  backed 
by  patriotic  scenery,  that  acts  as  the  stage  for  per- 
formances of  the  pageant  kind.     It  was  packed  so 


io8    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

tightly  with  people  that  the  movement  of  Individuals 
was  impossible.  On  this  ground  the  war  veterans 
should  have  been  drawn  up  in  ranks.  In  the  begin- 
ning they  were  drawn  up  in  ranks,  but  civilians,  hav- 
ing filled  up  every  gangway  and  passage,  overflowed 
on  to  the  field  and  filled  that  also.  They  were  even 
clinging  to  the  scenery  and  perched  in  the  trees. 
The  minimum  figure  for  that  crowd  was  given  as 
fifty  thousand. 

The  reception  given  to  the  Prince  was  overwhelm- 
ing; that  is  the  soberest  word  one  can  use.  As  he 
rode  into  the  arena  he  was  immediately  surrounded 
by  a  cheering  and  cheery  mass  of  people,  who  cut 
him  off  completely  from  his  Staff.  From  the  big 
stand  there  came  an  outburst  of  non-stop  Canadian 
cheering,  an  affair  of  whistles,  rattles,  cheering  and 
extempore  noises,  with  the  occasional  bang  of  a  fire- 
work, that  was  kept  alive  during  the  whole  of  the 
ceremony,  one  section  of  people  taking  it  up  when 
the  first  had  tired  itself  out. 

With  the  crowd  thick  about  him,  His  Royal  High- 
ness strove  to  force  his  way  to  the  platform  on  which 
he  was  to  speak  and  to  give  medals,  but  movement 
could  only  be  accomplished  at  a  slow  pace.  As  he 
neared  the  platform,  indeed,  movement  ceased  alto- 
gether, and  Prince  and  crowd  were  wedged  tight  in 
a  solid  mass.  The  pressure  of  the  cro'^d  seems  to 
have  been  too  much  for  him,  for  there  was  a  moment 
when  it  seemed  he  would  be  thrown  from  his  horse. 
A  "  movie  "  man  on  the  platform  came  to  his  rescue, 
and  catching  him  round  the  shoulders  pulled  him  into 
safety  over  the  heads  of  the  crowd. 


The  City  of  Crowds  109 

On  this  platform  and  in  a  setting  of  enthusiasm 
that  cannot  be  described  adequately,  he  spoke  and 
gave  medals  to  what  seemed  an  endless  stream  of 
brave  Canadians. 

It  was  in  the  evening  that  he  drove  through  the 
streets  of  the  town,  and  I  believe  I  am  right  in  say- 
ing that  he  gave  up  other  more  restful  engagements 
in  order  to  undertake  this  ride  that  took  several 
hours  and  was  not  less  than  twenty  miles  in  length. 

Toronto  is  a  city  in  which  the  civic  ideal  is  very 
strong,  and  the  concern  not  merely  of  the  municipal- 
ity but  of  all  the  citizens.  It  believes  in  beautiful 
and  up-to-date  town  planning,  and  the  elimination  of 
slums,  of  which  It  nov/  has  not  a  single  example.  On 
his  ride  the  Prince  saw  every  facet  of  the  city's 
activity. 

He  drove  through  the  beautiful  avenues  of  Rose- 
dale,  and  through  the  not  so  beautiful  but  more  ec- 
lectic area  of  The  Hill.  He  went  through  the  sub- 
urbs of  charming,  well-designed  houses  where  the 
professional  classes  have  their  homes,  and  into  the 
big,  comely  residential  areas  where  the  working  peo- 
ple live.  These  areas  are  places  of  attractive  homes. 
The  instinct  for  good  building  which  is  the  gift  of 
the  whole  of  America  makes  each  house  distinctive. 
There  is  never  the  hint  of  slum  ugliness  or  slum  con- 
gestion about  them.  The  houses  merely  differ  from 
the  houses  of  the  better-to-do  in  size,  but,  though 
they  are  smaller,  they  have  the  same  pleasant  feat- 
ures, neat  colonial-style  architecture,  broad  porches, 
unrailed  lawns,  and  the  rest.  Inside  they  have  cen- 
tral heating,  electric  light  (the  NIagara.hydro-power 


110    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

makes  lighting  ridiculously  cheap),  baths,  hardwood 
floors,  and  the  other  labour-saving  devices  of  modern 
construction.  Most  of  the  houses  are  owned  by  the 
people  who  live  in  them,  for  the  impulse  towards 
purchase  by  deferred  payments  is  very  strong  in  the 
Canadian. 

One  of  the  brightest  of  the  suburbs  was  built  up 
almost  entirely  through  the  energy  of  the  British 
emigrant.  These  men  working  in  the  city  did  not 
mind  the  "  long  hike  "  out  into  the  country,  to  an 
area  where  the  street  cars  were  not  known.  From 
farming  lots  they  built  up  a  charming  district  where, 
now  that  street  cars  are  more  reasonable,  the  Cana- 
dian is  also  anxious  to  live  —  when  he  can  find  a 
householder  willing  to  sell. 

The  Prince's  route  also  lay  through  the  big  shop- 
ping streets  such  as  Yonge  ("  street  "  is  dropped  in 
the  West)  and  King.  Here  are  the  great  and  bril- 
liant stores,  and  here  the  thrusting,  purposeful  Cana- 
dian crowd  does  its  trading.  There  is  a  touch  of  de- 
termination in  the  Canadian  on  the  sidewalk  which 
•seems  ruthlessness  to  the  more  easy-going  Britisher, 
yet  it  is  not  rudeness,  and  the  Canadian  is  an  ex- 
traordinarily orderly  person,  with  a  discipline  that 
springs  from  self  rather  than  from  obedience  to  by- 
laws. It  may  be  this  that  makes  a  Canadian  crowd 
so  decorous,  even  at  the  moment  when  it  seems  de- 
fying the  policemen. 

The  Prince  began  his  ride  in  the  wonderful  High 
Park,  where  Nature  has  had  very  little  coddling  from 
man,  and  the  results  of  such  non-interference  are  ad- 
mirable, and  in  that  park  he  at  once  entered  into  the 


The  City  of  Crowds  ill 

avenue  of  people  that  was  to  border  the  way  for 
twenty  miles. 

Again  this  crowd  thickened  at  certain  focal  points. 
At  the  entrances  of  different  districts,  in  the  streets 
of  heavily  populated  areas,  about  the  cemetery  where 
he  planted  a  tree,  it  gathered  in  astonishing  mass, 
but  the  amazing  thing  was  that  no  place  on  that 
twenty-mile  run  was  without  a  crowd. 

The  whole  of  the  city  appeared  to  have  come  in 
to  the  street  to  cheer  and  wave  flags  or  handkerchiefs 
as  he  passed,  just  as  the  whole  of  the  little  boy  popu- 
lation appeared  to  have  made  up  its  mind  to  run  or 
cycle  beside  him  for  the  whole  of  the  journey  despite 
all  risks  of  cars  behind. 

The  automobileocracy  of  the  wealthy  districts 
made  grandstands  of  their  cars  at  every  cross-road 
(and  the  Correspondents  don't  thank  them  for  this, 
for  they  tried  to  cut  into  the  procession  of  cars  after 
the  Prince  had  passed).  The  suburbans  made  their 
lawns  into  vantage  points,  and  grouped  themselves 
on  the  curb  edge,  and  the  working  classes  simply 
overflowed  the  road  in  solid  masses  of  attractively 
dressed  women  and  children  and  Canadianly-dressed 
men.  "Attractively  dressed"  is  a  phrase  to  note; 
there  are  no  rags  or  dowdiness  in  Canada. 

There  was  a  carnival  air  in  the  greeting  of  that 
multitude  on  that  long  ride,  and  the  laughing  and 
cheering  affection  of  the  crowds  would  have  called 
forth  a  like  response  even  in  a  personality  less  sym- 
pathetic than  the  Prince.  It  captured  him  com- 
pletely. The  formal  salute  never  had  a  chance. 
First  his  answer  to  the  cheering  was  an  affectionate 


112    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

flag-waving,  then  the  flag  was  not  good  enough  and 
his  hat  came  into  play,  then  he  was  standing  up  and 
waving,  and  finally  he  again  climbed  on  to  the  seat, 
and  half  standing,  half  sitting  on  the  folded  hood, 
rode  through  the  delighted  crowds.  With  members 
of  his  Staff  holding  on  to  him,  he  did  practically  the 
whole  of  the  journey  in  this  manner,  sitting  reason- 
ably only  at  quiet  spots,  only  changing  his  hat  from 
right  to  left  hand  when  one  arm  had  become  utterly 
exhausted.  And  all  the  way  the  crowds  lined  the 
route  and  cheered. 

It  was  an  astonishing  spectacle,  an  amazing  expe- 
rience. It  was  the  just  culmination  of  the  three  full 
days  of  profound  and  moving  emotion  in  which 
Toronto  had  shown  how  intense  was  its  affection. 

The  effect  of  such  a  demonstration  on  the  Prince 
himself  was  equally  profound.  One  of  the  Canadian 
Generals  who  had  been  driving  with  His  Royal 
Highness  on  one  of  these  occasions,  told  us  that  in 
the  midst  of  such  a  scene  as  this  the  Prince  had 
turned  to  him  and  said,  "  Can  you  wonder  that  my 
heart  is  full?" 


CHAPTER  IX 

OTTAWA 


THE  run  from  Toronto  to  Ottawa,  the  city 
that  is  a  province  by  itself  and  the  capital 
of  Canada,  was  a  night  run,  but  there  was, 
in  the  early  morning,  a  halt  by  the  wayside  so  that 
the  train  should  not  arrive  before  "  skedule."  The 
halt  was  utilized  by  the  Prince  as  an  opportunity  for 
a  stroll,  and  by  the  more  alert  of  the  country  people 
as  an  opportunity  for  a  private  audience. 

At  a  tiny  station  called  Manotick  farming  families 
who  believe  in  shaming  the  early  bird,  came  and  had 
a  look  at  that  royal-red  monster  of  all-steel  coaches, 
the  train,  while  the  youngest  of  them  introduced  the 
Prince  to  themselves. 

They  came  out  across  the  fields  in  twos  and  threes. 
One  little  boy,  in  a  brimless  hat,  working  overalls, 
and  with  a  fair  amount  of  his  working  medium, 
plough  land,  liberally  distributed  over  him  — 
Huckleberry  Finn  come  to  life,  as  somebody  observed 
—  worked  hard  to  break  down  his  shyness  and  talk 
like  a  boy  of  the  world  to  the  Prince.  A  little  girl, 
with  the  acumen  of  her  sex,  glanced  once  at  the  train, 
legged  it  to  her  father's  homestead,  and  came  back 
with  a  basket  of  apples,  which  she  presented  with  all 
the  solemnity  of  an  illuminated  address  on  vellurn. 

It  was  always  a  strange  sight  to  watch  people  com- 

113 


114    Westivard  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

ing  across  the  fields  from  nowhere  to  gather  round 
the  observation  platform  of  the  train  for  these  im- 
promptu audiences.  Every  part  of  Canada  is  well 
served  by  newspapers,  yet  to  see  people  drift  to  the 
right  place  at  the  right  time  in  the  midst  of  loneliness 
had  a  touch  of  wonder  about  it.  These  casual 
gatherings  were,  indeed,  as  significant  and  as  inter- 
esting as  the  great  crowds  of  the  cities.  There 
was  always  an  air  of  laughing  friendliness  in  them, 
too,  that  gave  charm  to  their  utter  informality,  for 
which  both  the  Prince  and  the  people  were  respon- 
sible. 

From  this  apple-garnished  pause  the  train  pushed 
on,  and  passing  through  the  garden  approach,  where 
pleasant  lawns  and  trees  make  a  boulevard  along  a 
canal  which  runs  parallel  with  the  railway,  the  Prince 
entered  Ottawa. 

We  had  been  warned  against  Ottawa,  mainly  by 
Ottawa  men.  We  had  been  told  not  to  expect  too 
much  from  the  Capital.  As  the  Prince  passed  from 
crowded  moment  to  crowded  moment  in  Toronto, 
the  stock  of  Ottawa  slumped  steadily  in  the  minds 
of  Ottawa's  sons.  They  became  insistent  that  we 
must  not  expect  great  thifigs  from  Ottawa.  Ottawa 
was  not  like  that.     Ottawa  was  the  taciturn  "  burg." 

It  was  a  city  of  people  given  over  to  the  medita- 
tive, if  sympathetic,  silence.  It  was  an  artificial  city 
sprung  from  the  sterile  seeds  of  legislature,  and 
thriving  on  the  arid  food  of  Bills.  It  was  a  mere 
ha-bitation  of  governments.  It  was  a  freak  city 
created  coldly  by  an  act  of  Solomonic  wisdom.  Be- 
fore 1858  it  was  a  drowsy  French  portage  village, 


Ottawa  1 1 5 

sitting  inertly  at  the  fork  of  the  Ottawa  and  Rideau 
rivers,  concerning  itself  only  with  the  lumber  trade, 
almost  inattentive  to  the  battle  which  Montreal  and 
Quebec,  Toronto  and  Kingston  were  fighting  for  the 
political  supremacy  of  the  Dominion.  Appealed  to, 
to  settle  this  dispute,  Queen  Victoria  decided  all 
feuds  by  selecting  what  had  been  the  old  Bytown, 
but  which  was  now  Ottawa,  as  the  official  capital  of 
the  Dominion, 

Ottawa  men  pointed  all  this  out  to  us,  and  de- 
clared that  a  town  of  such  artificial  beginnings,  and 
whose  present  population  was  made  up  of  civil  serv- 
ants and  mixed  Parliamentarians,  could  not  be  ex- 
pected to  show  real,  red-blood  enthusiasm. 

A  day  later  those  Ottawa  men  met  us  in  the  high 
and  handsome  walls  of  the  Chateau  Laurier,  and 
they  were  entirely  unrepentant.  They  were  even 
proud  of  their  false  prophecy,  and  asked  us  to  join 
them  in  a  grape-juice  and  soda  —  the  limit  of  the 
emotion  of  good  fellowship  in  Canada  (anyhow  pub- 
licly) is  grape-juice  and  soda  —  in  order  that  they 
might  explain  to  us  how  they  never  for  a  moment 
doubted  that  Ottawa  would  show  the  enthusiasm  it 
had  shown. 

"  This  Is  the  Capital  of  Canada,  sir.  The  home 
of  our  Parliament  and  the  Governor-General.  It 
is  the  hub  of  loyalty  and  law.  Of  course  it  would 
beat  the  band." 

II 

I  don't  know  that  I  want  to  quarrel  with  Ottawa's 
joke,  for  I  am  awed  by  the  v/ay  it  brought  it  off. 


ii6    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

Perhaps  it  brought  It  off  on  the  Prince  also.  If  so 
he  must  have  had  a  shock,  and  a  delightful  one.  For 
the  taciturnity  of  Ottawa  is  a  myth.  When  the 
Prince  entered  it  on  the  morning  of  Thursday,  Aug- 
ust 28th,  it  was  as  silent  as  a  whirlwind  bombard- 
ment, and  as  reticent  as  a  cyclone. 

There  were  crowds,  inevitably  vast  and  cheering, 
with  the  invincible  good-humour  of  Canada.  They 
captured  him  with  a  rush  after  he  was  through  with 
the  formalities  of  being  greeted  by  the  Governor- 
General  and  other  notabilities,  and  had  mounted  a 
carriage  behind  the  scarlet  outriders  of  Royalty. 
That  carriage  may  have  been  more  decorative  but 
it  was  no  more  purposeful  than  an  automobile  would 
be  under  the  circumstance.  Even  as  the  automobile, 
it  went  at  a  walking  pace,  with  the  crowd  pressing 
close  around  it. 

It  passed  up  from  the  swinging,  open  triangle  that 
fronts  the  Chateau  Laurler  Hotel  and  the  station, 
over  the  bridge  that  spans  the  RIdeau  Canal,  and 
along  the  broad  road  lined  with  administration  build- 
ings and  clubs,  to  the  spacious  grass  quadrangle 
about  which  the  massive  Parliament  buildings  group 
themselves. 

This  quadrangle  is  a  fit  place  to  stage  a  pageant. 
It  crowns  a  slow  hill  that  is  actually  a  sharp  bluff 
clothed  in  shrubs  that  hangs  over  the  startling  blue 
waters  of  the  Ottawa  river.  From  the  river  the 
mass  of  buildings  poised  dramatically  on  that  indi- 
vidual bluff  Is  a  sharp  note  of  beauty.  On  the  quad- 
rangle, that  is  the  city  side,  this  note  is  lost,  and  the 
rough  stone  buildings,  though  dignified,  have  a  tough, 


Ottawa  117 

square-bodied  look.  Yet  the  massiveness  of  the 
whole  grouping  about  the  great  space  of  grass  and 
gravel  terraces  certainly  gives  a  large  air.  They 
form  the  adequate  wings  and  backcloth  for  pag- 
eants. 

And  what  happened  that  morning  in  the  quad- 
rangle was  certainly  a  pageant  of  democracy. 

There  was  a  formal  program,  but  on  the  whole 
the  crowd  eliminated  that  for  one  of  its  own  liking. 
It  listened  to  addresses;  it  heard  Sir  Robert  Borden, 
and  General  Currie,  only  just  returned  to  Canada, 
express  the  Dominion's  sense  of  welcome.  Then  it 
expressed  it  itself  by  sweeping  the  police  completely 
away,  and  surrounding  the  Prince  in  an  excited 
throng. 

In  the  midst  of  that  crowd  the  Prince  stood  laugh- 
ing and  cheerful,  endeavouring  to  accommodate  all 
the  hands  that  were  thrust  towards  him.  A  review 
of  Boy  Scouts  was  timed  to  take  place,  but  the  crowd 
'*  scratched  "  it.  The  neat  wooden  barricades  and 
the  neat  ropes  that  linked  them  up  about  a  neat  par- 
ade ground  on  the  green  were  reduced  by  the  scien- 
tific process  of  bringing  an  irresistible  force  against 
a  movable  body.  Boy  Scouts  ceased  to  figure  in  the 
program  and  became  mere  atoms  in  a  mass  that 
surrounded  the  Prince  once  more,  and  expressed  it- 
self in  the  usual  way  now  it  had  him  to  itself. 

As  usual  the  Prince  himself  showed  not  the  slight- 
est disinclination  for  fitting  in  with  such  an  im- 
promptu ceremony.  He  was  as  happy  and  in  his 
element  as  he  always  was  when  meeting  everyday 
people  in  the  closest  intimacy.     It  wa3  a  carnival 


ii8    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

of  democracy,  but  one  in  which  he  played  as  demo- 
cratic a  part  as  any  among  that  throng. 

Yet  though  the  Prince  himself  was  the  direct  in- 
centive to  the  democratic  exchanges  that  happened 
throughout  the  tour,  there  was  no  doubt  that  the 
strain  of  them  was  exhausting. 

He  possesses  an  extraordinary  vitality.  He  is  so 
full  of  life  and  energy  that  it  was  difficult  to  give 
him  enough  to  do,  and  this  and  the  fact  that  Can- 
ada's wonderful  welcome  had  called  into  play  a 
powerful  sympathetic  response,  led  him  to  throw 
himself  into  everything  with  a  tireless  zest.  Never- 
theless, the  strenuous  days  at  Toronto,  followed  by 
this  strenuous  welcome  at  Ottawa,  had  made  great 
demands  upon  him,  and  it  was  decided  to  cut  down 
his  program  that  day  to  a  Garden  Party  in  the 
charming  grounds  of  Government  House,  and  to 
shelve  all  engagements  for  the  next  day,  Friday, 
August  29th. 

The  Prince  agreed  to  the  dropping  of  all  engage- 
ments save  one,  and  that  was  the  Public  Reception 
at  the  City  Hall  on  the  29th.  It  was  the  most  ex- 
acting of  the  events  on  the  program,  but  he  would 
not  hear  of  its  elimination;  the  only  alteration  in 
detail  that  he  made  was  that  his  right  hand,  damaged 
at  Toronto,  should  be  allowed  to  rest,  and  that  all 
shaking  should  be  done  with  the  left. 

The  Public  Reception  took  place.  The  only  in- 
vitation issued  was  one  in  the  newspapers.  The 
newspapers  said  "  The  Prince  will  meet  the  City." 
He  did.  The  whole  City  came.  It  was  again  the 
most  popular,  as  well  as  the  most  stimulating  of 


Ottawa  119 

functions.  And  it  followed  the  inevitable  lines. 
All  manner  cf  people,  all  grades  of  people  in  all 
conditions  of  costume  attended.  Old  ladies  again 
asked  him  when  he  was  going  to  get  married. 
Lumbermen  in  calf-high  boots  grinned  "  How  do, 
Prince?"  Mothers  brought  babies  in  arms,  most 
of  them  of  the  inarticulate  age,  and  of  awful  and 
solemn  dignity  of  under  one  —  it  was  as  though 
these  Ottawa  mothers  had  been  inspired  by  the  fine 
and  homely  loyalty  of  a  past  age,  and  had  brought 
their  babies  to  be  "  touched  "  by  a  Prince,  who,  like 
the  Princes  of  old,  was  one  with  as  well  as  being  at 
the  head  of  the  great  British  family. 

And  with  all  the  people  were  the  little  boys,  eager, 
full  of  initiative  and  cunning.  Shut  out  by  the  Olym- 
pians, one  group  of  little  boys  found  a  strategic  way 
into  the  Hall  by  means  of  a  fire-escape  staircase. 
They  had  already  shaken  hands  with  the  Prince  be- 
fore their  flank  movement  had  been  discovered  and 
the  flaw  in  the  endless  queue  repaired.  That  queue 
was  never  finished.  Although,  on  the  testimony  of 
the  experts,  the  Prince  shook  hands  at  the  rate  of 
forty-five  to  the  minute,  the  time  set  aside  for  the 
reception  only  allowed  of  some  2,500  filing  before 
him. 

But  those  outside  that  number  were  not  forgotten. 
The  Prince  came  out  to  the  front  of  the  hall  to  ex- 
press his  regret  that  Nature  had  proved  niggardly 
in  the  matter  of  hands.  He  had  only  one  hand,  and 
that  limited  greetings,  but  he  could  not  let  them  go 
without  expressing  his  delight  to  them  for  their 
warm  and  personal  welcome. 


120    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

The  disappointed  ones  recognized  the  limits  of 
human  endeavour.  His  popularity  was  in  no  way 
lessened.  They  were  content  with  having  seen  "  the 
cute  little  feller  "  as  some  of  them  called  him,  and 
made  the  most  of  that  experience  by  listening  to, 
and  swopping  anecdotes  about,  him. 

Most  of  these  centred  round  his  accessibility. 
One  typical  story  was  about  a  soldier,  who,  having 
met  him  in  France,  stepped  out  from  the  crowd  and 
hopped  on  to  the  footboard  of  his  car  to  say  "  How 
d'y'  do?"  The  Prince  gripped  the  khaki  man's 
hand  at  once,  and  shaking  it  and  holding  the  sol- 
dier safely  on  the  car  with  his  other  hand,  he  talked 
while  they  went  along.  Then  both  men  saluted, 
and  the  soldier  hopped  off  again  and  returned  to  the 
crowd. 

"  It  was  just  as  if  you  saw  me  in  an  automobile 
and  came  along  to  tell  me  something,"  said  the  man 
who  told  me  the  story.  "  There  was  no  king-stuff 
about  it.  And  that's  why  he  gets  us.  There  isn't 
a  sheet  of  ice  between  us  and  him." 

Another  man  said  to  me: 

"  If  you'd  told  me  a  month  ago  that  anybody  was 
going  to  get  this  sort  of  a  reception  I  should  have 
smiled  and  called  you  an  innocent.  I  would  have 
told  you  the  Canadians  aren't  built  that  way.  We're 
a  hard-bitten,  independent,  irreverent  breed.  We 
don't  go  about  shouting  over  anybody.  .  .  .  But 
now  we've  gone  wild  over  him.  And  I  can't  under- 
stand it.  He's  our  sort.  He  has  no  side.  We  like 
to  treat  men  as  men,  and  that's  the  way  he  meets 
us." 


Ottawa  121 


III 

The  long  week-end,  so  strenuously  begun,  did, 
however,  give  the  Prince  his  opportunity  for  rest  and 
recreation.  He  had  a  quiet  time  in  the  home  of  the 
Governor-General  at  the  beautiful  Rideau  Hall,  the 
attractive  and  spacious  grounds  of  which  are  part 
of  the  untrammelled  expanses  of  the  lovely  Rockhill 
Park  which  hangs  on  a  cliff  and  keeps  company  with 
the  shining  Ottawa  river  for  miles  to  the  east  of  the 
city.  Apart  from  sightseeing,  and  golfing  and  danc- 
ing at  the  pretty  County  Club  across  the  Ottawa  on 
the  Hull  side,  he  attempted  no  program  until 
Monday  morning. 

Ottawa  is  not  so  virile  in  atmosphere  as  other  of 
the  Canadian  cities.  Its  artificial  heart,  the  Parlia- 
ment area,  seems  to  absorb  most  of  its  vitality.  Its 
architecture  is  massed  very  effectively  on  the  hill 
whose  steep  cliffs  in  a  spray  of  shrubs,  rise  at  the  knee 
of  the  two  rivers,  the  Ottawa  and  the  Rideau,  but 
outside  the  radius  of  the  Parliament  buildings  and 
the  few,  fine,  brisk,  lively  streets  that  serve  them, 
the  town  fades  disappointingly  eastward,  west- 
ward and  northward  Into  spiritless  streets  of  resi- 
dences. 

The  shores  of  the  river  are  its  chiefest  attraction. 
Below  the  Parliament  bluff,  there  lies  to  the  left  a 
silver  white  spit  In  the  blue  of  the  stream,  that  humps 
itself  Into  a  green  and  habitual  mass  on  which  are  a 
huddle  of  picturesque  houses.  These  hide  the  spray 
of  the  Chaudiere  Falls,  which  stretch  between  this 
Island  and  the  Hull  side.     Below  the  Falls  is  the 


122    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

picturesque  mass  of  a  lumber  "  boom,"  that  stretches 
down  the  river. 

To  the  extreme  right  beyond  the  locks  of  Rideau 
Canal,  is  the  dramatic  lattice-work  of  a  fine  bridge, 
a  bridge  where  railroad  tracks,  tram-roads,  automo- 
bile and  footways  dive  under  and  over  each  other  at 
the  entrances  in  order  to  find  their  different  levels 
for  crossing.  Beyond  the  bridge,  and  close  against 
it  is  the  jutting-cliff  that  makes  the  point  of  Major 
Hill  Park. 

Between  these  two  extremes,  right  and  left,  one 
faces  a  broad  plain,  wooded  and  gemmed  with 
painted  houses,  and  ending  in  a  smoke-blue  rampart 
of  distant  hills  —  all  of  it  luminant  with  the  curi- 
ously  clarified  light  of   Canada. 

From  Major  Hill  Park  the  riverside  avenue  goes 
east  over  the  Rideau,  whose  Falls  are  famous,  but 
now  obscured  by  a  lumber  mill;  past  Rideau  Hall  to 
Rockhill  Park.  Rockhill  Park  is  a  delight.  It  has 
all  the  joys  of  the  primitive  wilderness  plus  a  service 
of  street-cars.  Its  promenade  under  the  fine  and 
scattered  trees  follows  the  lip  of  the  cliff  along  the 
Ottawa,  and  across  the  blue  stream  can  be  seen  the 
fillet  of  gold  beach  of  the  far  side,  and  on  the  stream 
are  red-sailed  boats,  canoes,  and  natty  gasolene 
launches.  How  far  Rockhill  Park  keeps  company 
with  the  Ottawa,  I  do  not  know.  A  stroll  of  nearly 
two  hours  brought  me  to  a  region  of  comely  country 
houses,  set  in  broad  gardens  —  but  there  was  still 
park,  and  it  seemed  to  go  on  for  ever. 

There  are  two  or  three  Golf  Clubs  (every  town  in 
Canada  has  a  golf  course,  or  two,  and  sometimes 


Ottawa  123 


they  are  municipal)  over  the  river  on  the  Hull  side 
—  a  side  that  was  at  the  time  of  our  visit  a  place 
of  pilgrimage  from  Ottawa  proper.  For  it  is  in 
Quebec,  where  the  "  dry  "  law  is  not  implacable  as 
that  of  Ottawa  and  Ontario.  Hull  is  also  noted  for 
its  match  factory  and  other  manufactures  that  make 
up  a  very  good  go-ahead  industrial  town,  as  well  as 
for  the  fact  that  in  matters  of  contributions  to 
Victory  Loans,  and  that  sort  of  thing,  it  can  hold  its 
own  with  any  city,  though  that  city  be  five  times  its 
size. 

The  chief  of  the  Ottawa  clubs  on  the  Hull  side  is 
the  County  Club,  an  idyllic  place  that  has  made  the 
very  best  out  of  the  rather  rough  plain,  and  stands 
looking  through  the  trees  to  the  rapids  of  the  Ottawa 
river.  It  is  a  delightful  club,  built  with  the  usual 
Western  instinct  for  apposite  design,  and,  as  with 
most  clubs  on  the  American  Continent,  it  is  a  revela- 
tion of  comfort.  Its  dining-room  is  extraordinarily 
attractive,  for  it  is  actually  the  spacious  verandah  of 
the  building,  screened  by  trellis  work  into  which  is 
woven  the  leaves  and  flowers  of  climbers.  The  ceil- 
ing is  a  canopy  of  flowers  and  green  leaves,  and  to 
dine  here  overlooking  the  lawns  is  to  know  an  hour 
of  the  greatest  charm. 

The  Prince  was  the  guest  here  on  several  occa- 
sions, and  dances  were  given  in  his  honour.  For 
this  purpose  the  lawn  in  front  of  the  verandah  was 
squared  off  with  a  high  arcadian  trellis,  and  between 
the  pillars  of  this  trellis  were  hung  flowers  and  flags 
and  lights,  and  all  the  trees  about  had  coloured  bulbs 
amid  their  leaves,  so  that  at  night  it  was  an  impres- 


124    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

sion  of  Arcady  as  a  modern  Watteau  might  see  it, 
with  the  crispness  and  the  beauty  of  the  women  and 
the  vivid  dresses  of  the  women  giving  the  scene  a 
quality  peculiarly  and  vivaciously  Canadian. 


IV 

The  circumstances  of  Monday,  September  ist, 
made  it  an  unforgettable  day. 

The  chief  ceremonies  on  the  Prince's  program 
were  the  laying  of  the  corner-stone  of  the  new  Par- 
liament Buildings,  and  the  inauguration  of  the  Vic- 
tory Loan.  But  something  else  happened  which 
made  it  momentous.  It  happened  to  be  Labour 
Day. 

It  was  the  day  when  the  whole  of  Labour  in  Can- 
ada —  and  indeed  in  America  —  gave  itself  over  to 
demonstrations.  Labour  held  street  parades,  field 
sports,  and,  I  daresay,  made  speeches.  It  was  the 
day  of  days  for  the  workers. 

There  were  some  who  thought  that  the  pro- 
gram of  Labour  would  clash  with  the  program 
of  the  Prince.  That,  to  put  it  at  its  mildest.  Labour 
on  a  holiday  would  ignore  the  Royal  ceremonials 
and  emasculate  them  as  functions.  The  men  who 
put  forward  these  opinions  were  Canadians,  but  they 
did  not  know  Canada.  It  was  Labour  Day,  and 
Labour  made  the  day  for  the  Prince. 

When  the  Prince  had  learnt  that  it  was  the  Peo- 
ple's day,  and  that  there  was  to  be  a  big  sports  meet- 
ing and  gala  in  one  of  the  Ottawa  parks,  he  had 
specially  added  another  item  to  his  full  list  of  events. 


Ottawa  125 

and  made  it  known  that  he  would  visit  the  park. 

Labour  promptly  returned  the  courtesy,  and  of  its 
own  free  will  turned  its  parade  into  a  guard  of  hon- 
our, which  lined  the  fine  Rideau  and  Wellington 
streets  for  his  progress  between  Government  House 
and  Parliament  Square. 

As  far  as  I  could  gather  Labour  decided  upon  and 
carried  this  out  without  consulting  anybody.  Streets 
were  taken  over  without  any  warning,  and  certainly 
without  any  fuss.  There  seemed  to  be  few  police 
about,  and  there  was  no  need  for  them.  Labour 
took  command  of  the  show  in  the  interest  of  its 
friend  the  Prince,  and  would  not  permit  the  slight- 
est disorderliness. 

It  was  a  remarkable  sight.  Early  in  the  morning 
the  Labour  Parade  appeared  along  Rideau  Street, 
mounting  the  hill  to  the  Parliament  House.  The 
processionists,  each  group' in  the  costume  of  its  call- 
ing, walked  in  long,  thin  files  on  each  side  of  the 
road,  the  line  broken  at  intervals  by  the  trade  floats. 
Floats  are  an  essential  part  of  every  American 
parade;  they  are  what  British  people  call  "set- 
pieces,"  tableaux  built  up  on  wagons  or  on  auto- 
mobiles; all  of  them  are  ingenious  and  most  of  them 
are  beautiful. 

These  floats  represented  the  various  trades,  a 
boiler-maker's  shop  in  full  (and  noisy)  action;  a 
stone-worker's  bench  in  operation;  the  framew^ork 
of  a  wooden  house  on  an  auto,  to  show  Ottawa  what 
its  carpenters  and  joiners  could  do,  and  so  on.  With 
these  marched  the  workers,  distinctively  clothed,  as 
though  the  old  guilds  had  never  ceased. 


126    Westward  ivith  the  Prince  of  Wales 

When  the  head  of  the  procession  reached  the 
entrance  of  Parliament  Square  it  halted,  and  the  line, 
turning  left  and  right,  walked  towards  the  curb, 
pressing  back  the  thousands  of  sightseers  to  the 
pavement  in  a  most  effective  manner.  They  lined 
and  kept  the  route  in  this  fashion  until  the  Prince 
had  passed. 

It  was  thus  that  the  Prince  drove,  not  between 
the  ranks  of  an  army  of  soldiers,  but  through  the 
ranks  of  the  army  of  labour.  Not  khaki,  but  the 
many  uniforms  of  labour  marked  the  route.  There 
were  firemen  in  peaked  caps,  with  bright  steel  grap- 
pling-hooks  at  their  waists;  butchers  in  white  blouses, 
white  trousers,  and  white  peaked  caps;  there  were 
tram-conductors,  and  railway-men,  hotel  porters, 
teamsters  in  overalls,  lumbermen  in  calf-high  boots 
of  tan,  with  their  rough  socks  showing  above  them 
on  their  blue  jumper  trousers,  barbers,  drug-store 
clerks  and  men  of  all  the  trades. 

Above  this  guard  of  workers  were  the  banners  of 
the  Unions,  some  in  English,  some  proclaiming  in 
French  that  here  was  "  La  Fraternite  Unie  Charpen- 
tiers  et  Menuisiers,"  and  so  on. 

It  was  a  real  demonstration  of  democracy.  It 
was  the  spontaneous  and  affectionate  action  of  the 
everyday  people,  determined  to  show  how  personal 
was  its  regard  for  a  Prince  who  knew  how  to  be  one 
with  the  everyday  people.  As  a  demonstration  it 
was  immensely  more  significant  than  the  most  august 
item  of  a  formal  program. 

As  the  Prince  rode  through  those  hearty  and 
friendly    ranks    in    a    State    carriage,    and    behind 


Ottawa  127 

mounted  troopers,  the  troopers  and  the  trappings 
seemed  to  matter  very  little  indeed.  The  crowd 
that  cheered  and  waved  flags  —  and  sometimes 
spanners  and  kitchen  pans  —  and  the  youth  who 
waved  his  gloves  back  and  forth  with  all  their  own 
freedom  from  ceremony,  were  the  things  that 
mattered. 

When,  at  the  laying  of  the  corner-stone  a  few  min- 
utes later,  Sir  Robert  Borden  declared  that,  in  re- 
peating the  act  of  his  grandfather,  who  laid  the 
original  corner-stone  of  Canada's  Parliament  build- 
ings, as  Prince  of  Wales,  in  i860.  His  Royal  High- 
ness was  inaugurating  a  new  era,  the  happenings  of 
just  now  seemed  to  lend  conviction  that  indeed  a 
new  phase  of  history  had  come  into  being.  It  was 
a  phase  in  which  throne  and  people  had  been  woven 
into  a  strong  and  sane  democracy,  begot  of  the  inti- 
mate personal  sympathy,  understanding  and  reliance 
the  war  had  brought  about  between  rulers  and  peo- 
ple. 

The  new  buildings  replace  the  old  Parliament 
Houses  burnt  down  in  the  beginning  of  the  war. 
The  fire  was  attended  by  sad  loss  of  life,  and  one  of 
those  killed  was  a  lady,  who,  having  got  out  of  the 
burning  building  in  safety,  was  suddenly  overcome 
by  a  feminine  desire  to  save  her  furs.  She  re- 
entered the  blazing  building  and  was  lost. 

The  new  building  follows  the  design  of  the  old, 
rather  rigid  structure,  though  it  has  not  the  cam- 
panile. The  porch  where  the  stone  was  laid  was 
draped  in  huge  hangings  descending  in  grave  folds 
from  a  sheaf  of  flags;  this  with  the  fagade  of  the 


128    Westward  with  the  PriJice  of  Wales 

grey  stone  building  made  a  superb  backing  to  the 
great  stage  of  terrace  upon  which  the  ceremony 
was  enacted.  It  had  all  the  dignity,  colour  and 
braveness  of  a  Durbar. 

The  Victory  Loan  was  inaugurated  by  the  un- 
furling of  a  flag  by  the  Prince.  He  promised  to 
give  to  each  of  the  cities  and  villages  (by  the  way, 
I  don't  think  the  villages  are  villages  in  Canada; 
they  are  all  towns)  who  subscribed  a  certain  per- 
centage a  replica  of  this  special  flag.  There  was 
keen  competition  throughout  the  Dominion  for  these 
flags,  Canadians  responding  to  the  pictures  on  the 
hoardings  with  a  good  will,  in  order  to  win  a 
"  Prince  of  Wales'  Flag." 

Although  the  Prince  was  down  to  visit  Hull  at  a 
specific  time  that  afternoon,  he  set  aside  an  hour  in 
order  to  pay  his  promised  visit  to  the  Labour  fete 
in  Lansdowne  Park.  There  was  only  time  for  him 
to  drive  through  the  park,  but  the  warm  reception 
given  to  him  made  it  an  action  really  worth  while. 

Hull,  which  is  inclined  to  sprawl  as  a  town,  was 
transformed  by  sun,  flags  and  people  into  a  place  of 
great  attraction  when  the  Prince  arrived.  And  if 
there  was  not  any  high  pomp  about  the  visit,  there 
was  certainly  prettiness.  The  pretty  girls  of  Hull 
had  transformed  themselves  into  representatives  of 
all  the  races  of  the  Entente,  and  as  the  Prince  stood 
on  the  scarlet  steps  of  a  dais  outside  the  Town  Hall, 
each  one  of  these  came  forward  and  made  him  a 
curtsy. 

Following  them  were  four  tiny  girls,  each  hold- 
ing a  large  bouquet,  each  bouquet  being  linked  to  the 


Ottawa  129 

others  by  broad  red  ribbons.  They  were  the  jolliest 
little  girls,  but  nervous,  and  after  negotiating  the 
terrors  of  the  scarlet  stairs  with  discretion,  the  broad 
desert  of  the  dais  undid  them  —  or  rather  it  didn't. 
At  the  moment  of  presentation,  four  little  girls,  as 
well  as  four  bouquets,  were  linked  together  by 
broad  red  ribbons,  until  it  was  difficult  to  tell  which 
was  little  girl  and  which  was  bouquet.  There  were 
many  untanglers  present,  but  the  chief  of  them  was 
the  Prince  of  Wales  himself. 

The  Hull  ceremonials  were  certainly  as  happy  as 
any  could  be.  The  little  girls  gave  a  homely  touch, 
so  did  the  people  —  match-factory  girls,  brown- 
habited  Franciscan  friars,  and  the  rest  —  who  joined 
in  the  public  reception,  but  the  crowning  touch  of 
this  atmosphere  was  the  review  of  the  war  vet- 
erans. 

There  were  so  many  war  veterans  that  Hull  had 
no  open  space  large  enough  to  parade  them.  Hull, 
therefore,  had  the  happy  idea  of  reviewing  them  in 
the  main  street.  Thus  the  everyday  street  was 
packed  with  everyday  men  who  had  fought  for  the 
very  homes  about  them.  That  seemed  to  bring  out 
the  real  purpose  of  the  great  war  more  than  any 
effort  in  propaganda  could. 

It  was  in  the  main  street,  too,  after  receiving  a 
loving  cup  from  the  Great  War  Veterans,  that  the 
Prince  spoke  to  these  comrades  of  the  war.  He 
stood  up  in  his  car  and  addressed  them  simply  and 
directly,  thanking  them  and  wishing  them  good  luck, 
and  there  was  something  infinitely  suggestive  in  his 
standing  up  there  so  simply  amid  that  pack  of  men 


130    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

and  women  wedged  tightly  between  the  houses  of 
that  homely  street. 

Wedged  is  assuredly  the  right  term,  for  it  was 
with  difficulty,  and  only  by  infinite  care,  that  the  car 
was  driven  through  the  crowd  and  away. 


CHAPTER  X 

MONTREAL:    QUEBEC 


MONTREAL  was  not  actually  in  the  sche- 
dule. In  the  program  of  the  Prince's 
tour  it  was  put  down  as  the  last  place  he 
should  visit.  This,  in  a  sense,  was  fitting.  It  was 
proper  that  the  greatest  city  in  Canada  should  wind 
up  the  visit  in  a  befitting  week. 

All  the  same,  as  the  Prince  himself  said,  he  could 
not  possibly  start  for  the  West  without  making  at 
least  a  call  on  Montreal,  so  he  rounded  off  his 
travels  among  the  big  cities  of  the  Canadian  East 
by  spending  the  inside  of  a  day  there. 

I  wonder  whether  there  was  ever  an  inside  of  a 
day  so  crowded?  I  was  present  when  Manchester 
rushed  President  Wilson  through  a  headlong  morn- 
ing of  events,  and  the  Manchester  effort  was  pedes- 
trian beside  Montreal's.  Even  the  Prince,  who 
himself  can  put  any  amount  of  vigour  into  life,  must 
have  found  nothing  in  his  experience  to  equal  a  non- 
stop series  of  ceremonies  carried  on,  at  times,  at  a 
pace  of  forty-miles  an  hour. 

That  is  what  happened.  Montreal  was  given 
about  four  hours  of  the  Prince.  Montreal  is  a  pro- 
gressive city;  it  has  an  up-to-date  and  "  Do-it-Now  " 
sense.      Confronted  at  very  short  notice  with  those 

131 


132     Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

four  hours,  it  promptly  set  itself  to  make  the  most 
of  them.  It  packed  about  four  days'  program  into 
them. 

It  managed  this,  of  course,  by  using  motor-cars. 
The  whole  of  the  American  Continent,  I  have  come 
to  see,  has  a  motor-car  method  of  thinking  out  and 
accomplishing  things.  Montreal  certainly  has. 
Montreal  met  the  Prince  in  an  automobile  mood, 
whipped  him  from  the  train  and  entertained  him  on 
the  top  gear  for  every  moment  of  his  stay. 


II 

He  arrived  at  the  handsome  Windsor  Station  of 
the  C.P.R.  on  the  morning  of  Tuesday,  September 
2nd,  and  was  at  once  taken  to  a  big,  grey  motor. 
His  guide,  the  Mayor  of  the  city,  then  began  to 
show  him  how  time  could  be  annihilated  and  days 
compressed  into  hours. 

In  those  few  hours  he  was  shown  not  a  section, 
of  the  great  commercial  city,  not  merely  the  City 
Hall,  and  a  street  or  two,  and  a  place  wherein  to 
lunch.  He  was  shown  all  Montreal.  He  was 
shown  the  city  of  Montreal  and  the  suburbs  of  Mon- 
treal, and  verily  I  believe  he  was  shown  every  man, 
woman,  and  certainly  every  child  of  flag-wagging 
age,  in  Montreal. 

And  when  he  had  seen  the  high,  fine  business 
blocks  of  Montreal,  and  the  pretty  residential  dis- 
tricts, where  the  well-designed  homes  seem  to  stand 
on  terrace  over  terrace  of  the  smoothest,  greenest 
grass,  he  was  shown  the  country-side  about  Mon- 


Montreal:  Quebec  133 

treal,  the  comely  little  habitant  parishes  and  holiday 
places  that  make  outlying  Montreal,  and  the  con- 
vents and  the  colleges  where  Montreal  educates  it- 
self, the  Universities  where  that  education  is  rounded 
off,  and  the  long,  wide,  straight  speedways  over 
which  Montreal  citizens  get  the  best  out  of  their 
motor-car  moments  —  and  he  was  shown  how  it 
was  done. 

And  after  showing  him  the  rivers  that  make  the 
hilly  country  about  Montreal  beautiful,  and  the  little 
pocket  villages,  he  was  swung  back  out  of  the  green 
of  the  summer  country  and  shown  more  business 
blocks,  and  just  a  hint  of  the  great  wharves  and 
docks  that  fringe  the  St.  Lawrence  and  give  the 
city  its  great  industrial  power  and  fame.  Then 
when  they  had  shown  him  all  the  things  that  man 
usually  sees  only  after  weeks  of  tenacious  explora- 
tion, they  spun  him  up  a  corkscrew  drive  that  goes 
first  among  charming  houses,  then  among  beautiful 
deep  trees  and  grass,  and  sat  him  down  in  a  glowing 
pavilion  on  the  top  of  this  hill,  Mount  Royal  —  the 
Montreal  that  gives  the  city  its  name  —  and  gave 
him  lunch. 

There,  as  he  ate,  he  looked  down  over  one  of  the 
great  views  of  the  world.  Below  him  was  the  splen- 
did vista  of  a  splendid  city;  the  mass  of  tall  offices, 
factories  and  the  high  fret  of  derricks  and  elevators 
along  the  quays  that  covered  the  site  of  the  Indian 
lodges  of  Hochclaga  that  Jacques  Cartier  first 
found;  the  mass  of  spires  from  a  thousand  churches, 
the  swelling  domes  and  hipped  roofs  of  basilica  and 
college  that  had  grown  up  from  the  old  religious 


134    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

outpost,  the  nucleus  of  Christianity  in  the  wilds  that 
was  to  convert  the  wilds,  the  Ville  Marie  de  Mon- 
treal that  Maisonneuve  had  founded  nearly  three 
centuries  ago. 

And  beyond  this  swinging  breadth  of  city  that 
was  modernity,  as  well  as  history,  the  Prince  saw  the 
grey,  misty  bosom  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  winding 
broad  and  significant  beneath  the  distant  hills. 


Ill 

Truly  it  had  been  a  mighty  day,  worthy  of  a  mighty 
city.  And  a  day  not  merely  big  in  achievement,  but 
big  In  meaning  also.  In  his  drive  the  Prince  had 
covered  no  less  than  thirty-six  miles  in  and  about  the 
city,  and  on  practically  the  whole  of  that  great  sweep 
there  had  been  crowds,  and  at  times  big  crowds, 
all  friendly  and  with  an  enthusiasm  that  was  French 
as  well  as  Canadian. 

There  were  naturally  tracts  of  road  in  the  coun- 
try where  people  did  not  gather  in  force,  but  almost 
everywhere  there  were  some.  Sometimes  it  was  a 
family  gathered  by  a  pretty  house  draped  with  flags. 
Sometimes  it  was  a  village,  making  up  with  the  flags 
in  their  hands  for  the  hanging  flags  short  notice  had 
prevented  their  sporting. 

On  an  open  stretch  of  road  the  Prince  would  come 
abreast  of  a  convent  in  the  fields.  By  the  fence  of 
the  convent  all  the  little  girls  would  be  ranked, 
dressed,  sometimes,  in  national  ribbons,  and  anyhow 
carrying  flags,  and  with  them  would  be  the  nuns. 
Or  if  the  convent  was  not  a  teaching  order,  the  nuns 


Montreal:  Quebec  135 

would  be  by  themselves,  forming  a  delightful  pic- 
ture of  quiet  respect  on  the  porch  or  along  the  gar- 
den wall. 

Boys'  schools  had  the  inmates  gathered  at  the 
road-edge  in  jolly  mobs,  though  some  of  these  had 
a  semi-military  dignity,  because  of  the  quaint  and 
kepi-ed  uniform  of  the  school,  that  made  the  boys 
look  like  cadets  out  of  a  picture  by  Detaille. 

The  seminaries  had  their  flocks  of  black  fledglings 
drawn  up  under  the  professor-priests,  and  the  sober 
black  of  these  embryo  priests  had  not  the  slightest 
restriction  on  their  enthusiasm. 

There  were  crowds  everywhere  on  that  extraordi- 
nary ride,  but  it  was  in  Montreal  Itself  that  the 
throngs  reached  immense  proportions.  From  the 
first  moment  of  arrival,  when  the  Prince  in  mufti 
rode  out  from  under  the  clangour  of  "  God  Bless 
the  Prince  of  Wales  "  played  on  the  bells  of  St. 
George's  Church,  that  hob-nobs  with  the  station, 
crowds  were  thick  about  the  route.  As  he  swung 
from  Dominion  Square  (in  which  the  station  stands) 
into  the  Regent  Street  of  Montreal,  St.  Catherine 
Street,  crowds  of  employes  crowded  the  windows  of 
the  big  and  fine  stores,  and  added  their  welcome  to 
the  mass  on  the  sidewalks. 

Short  notice  had  curtailed  decoration,  but  the  en- 
thusiastic employes  (mainly  feminine)  of  one  tall 
store  strove  to  rectify  the  lack  by  arming  themselves 
with  flags  and  stationing  themselves  at  every  win- 
dow. Balancing  perilously,  they  waited  until  the 
Prince  came  level,  and  then  set  the  whole  face  of  the 
tall  building  fluttering  with  Union  Jacks. 


136    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

From  these  streets,  impressive  in  their  sense  of 
vigour  and  industry,  the  procession  of  cars  mounted 
through  the  residential  quarter  to  Mount  Royal 
Park.  Here  in  the  presence  of  a  big  crowd  that 
surrounded  him  and  got  to  close  quarters  at  once, 
the  Prince  alighted  and  stayed  a  few  minutes  at  the 
statue  of  Georges  Etienne  Cartier,  the  father  of 
Canadian  unity,  whose  centenary  was  then  being 
celebrated,  since  the  war  forbade  rejoicing  on  the 
real  anniversary  in  19 14. 

Cartier's  daughter,  Hortense  Cartier,  was  present 
at  this  little  ceremony,  and  she  was,  as  it  were, 
a  personal  link  between  her  father  and  the  Prince, 
who  is  himself  helping  to  inaugurate  a  new  phase  of 
unity,  that  of  the  Empire. 

From  this  point  the  Prince's  route  struck  out  into 
the  country  districts  that  I  have  described,  but  the 
crowds  had  accumulated  rather  than  diminished 
when  he  returned  to  the  streets  of  the  city,  about  one 
o'clock,  and  he  drove  through  lanes  of  people  so 
dense  that  at  times  the  pace  of  his  car  was  retarded 
to  a  walk. 

The  crowd  was  a  suggestive  one.  All  ranks  and 
conditions  were  in  it  —  and  conditions  rather  than 
ranks  were  apparent  in  the  dock-side  area,  which  is 
a  dingy  one  for  Canada.  But  in  all  the  crowds  th^e 
thing  that  struck  me  most  was  their  proportion  of 
children.  Montreal  seemed  a  veritable  hive  of  chil- 
dren. There  were  thousands  and  thousands  of 
them. 

The  streets  were  bursting  with  kiddies.  And  not 
merely  were  there  multitudes  of  girls  and  boys  of 


Montreal:  Quebec  137 

that  thoroughly  vociferous  age  of  somewhere  under 
twelve,  but  there  were  ranked  battalions  of  boys  and 
maids,  all  of  an  age  obviously  under  twenty. 

Quebec  is  the  province  of  large  families.  Ten 
children  to  a  marriage  is  a  commonplace,  and  twenty 
is  not  a  rarity.  A  man  is  not  thought  to  be  worth 
his  salt  unless  he  has  his  quiver  full.  And  the  result 
of  this  as  I  saw  it  in  the  streets  gives  food  for 
thought. 

That  huge  marshalling  of  the  citizens  of  tomor- 
row gives  one  not  merely  a  sense  of  Canada's  po- 
tentiality, but  of  the  potentiality  of  Quebec  in  the 
future  of  Canada.  With  a  new  race  of  such  a 
healthy  standard  growing  up,  the  future  of  Mon- 
treal has  a  look  of  greatness.  Montreal  is  now  the 
biggest  and  most  vigorous  city  in  Canada,  it  plays 
a  large  part  in  the  life  of  Canada.  What  part  will 
it  play  tomorrow? 

A  good  as  well  as  great  part,  surely.  Discrimin- 
ating Canadians  tell  you  that  the  French-Canadian 
makes  the  best  type  of  citizen.  He  is  industrious, 
go-ahead,  sane,  practical;  he  is  law-abiding  and  he 
is  loyal.  His  history  shows  that  he  is  loyal;  indeed, 
Canada  as  it  stands  today  owes  not  a  little  to  French- 
Canadian  loyalty  and  willingness  to  take  up  arms  in 
support  of  British  institutions. 

French-Canada  took  up  arms  in  the  Great  War  to 
good  purpose,  sending  40,000  men  to  the  Front, 
though  its  good  work  has  been  obscured  by  the 
political  propaganda  made  out  of  the  Anti-Con- 
scription campaign.  Sober  politicians  —  by  no 
means  on  the  side  of  the  French-Canadians  —  told 


138    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

me  that  there  was  rather  more  smoke  in  that  matter 
than  circumstances  created,  and  in  Britain  particu- 
larly the  business  was  over-exaggerated.  There 
was  a  good  deal  of  politics  mixed  up  in  the  attitude 
of  Quebec,  "  And  in  any  case,"  said  my  informant, 
"  Quebec  was  not  the  first  to  oppose  conscription, 
nor  yet  the  bitterest,  though  she  was,  perhaps,  the 
most  candid." 

The  language  difficulty  is  a  difficulty,  yet  that  has 
been  the  subject  of  exaggeration,  also.  Those  who 
find  it  a  grave  problem  seem  to  be  those  who  have 
never  come  in  contact  with  it,  but  are  anxious  about 
it  at  a  distance.  Those  who  are  in  contact  with  the 
French-speaking  races  say  that  French  and  English- 
speaking  peoples  get  on  well  on  the  whole,  and  have 
an  esteem  for  each  other  that  makes  nothing  of  the 
language  barrier. 

Concerning  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  which  is 
certainly  in  a  very  powerful  position  in  Quebec,  I 
have  heard  from  non-Catholics  quite  as  much  said  in 
favour  of  the  good  it  does,  as  I  have  heard  to  the 
contrary,  so  I  concluded  that  on  its  human  side  it  is 
as  human  as  any  other  concern,  doing  good  and 
making  mistakes  in  the  ordinary  human  way.  As 
far  as  its  spiritual  side  is  concerned  there  is  no  doubt 
at  all  that  it  holds  its  people.  Its  huge  churches 
are  packed  with  huge  congregations  at  every  service 
on  Sunday. 

On  the  whole,  then,  I  fancy  that  that  part  of 
Canada's  future  which  lies  in  the  hands  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Montreal,  and  the  Province  of  Quebec  gen- 
•erally,  will  be  for  the  good  of  the  Dominion.     Cer- 


Montreal:  Quebec  139 

tainly  the  attitude  of  the  people  as  shown  in  the 
packed  and  ecstatic  streets  of  Montreal  was  a  very 
good  omen. 

The  welcome  had  had  its  usual  effect  on  the  Prince. 
The  formal  salute  never  had  a  chance,  and  from 
the  outset  of  the  ride  he  had  stood  up  in  his  car  and 
waved  back  in  answer  to  the  cheering  of  the  crowd. 
When  standing  for  so  many  miles  tired  him,  he  sat 
high  up  on  the  folded  hood,  with  one  of  his  suite  to 
hold  him,  and  he  did  not  stop  waving  his  hat.  In 
this  way  he  accomplished  the  thirty-six  miles  ride, 
only  slipping  down  into  his  seat  as  the  car  mounted 
the  stiff  zig-zag  that  led  up  Mount  Royal  to  the 
luncheon  pavilion. 

The  slowness  of  this  climb  was,  in  a  sense,  his 
undoing.  As  his  car  neared  the  top  of  the  hill,  two 
Montreal  flappers,  whose  extreme  youth  was  only 
exceeded  by  their  extreme  daring,  sprang  on  to  the 
footboard  and  held  him  up  with  autograph  books. 
He  immediately  produced  a  fountain  pen,  and  sitting 
once  more  on  the  back  of  the  car,  wrote  his  name  as 
the  car  went  along,  and  the  young  ladies  from  Mon- 
treal clung  on  to  it. 

This  delightful  act  was  too  much  for  one  of  the 
maidens,  for,  on  getting  her  book  back,  she  kissed  the 
Prince  impulsively,  and  then  in  a  sudden  attack  of 
deferred  modesty,  sprang  from  the  car  and  ran  for 
her  blushes'  sake. 

From  the  luncheon  pavilion  the  Prince  was  whirled 
to  the  Royal  train,  and  in  that,  after  a  recuperative 
round  of  golf  at  a  course  just  outside  Montreal,  he 
set  out  for  the  comparative  calm  of  the  great  West. 


CHAPTER  XI 

ON   THE    ROAD   TO   TROUT 


THE  run  on  the  days  following  the  packed 
moments  of  Montreal  was  one  of  luxurious 
indolence.  The  Royal  train  was  heading 
for  the  almost  fabled  trout  of  Nipigon,  where, 
among  the  beauties  of  lake  and  stream,  the  Prince 
was  to  take  a  long  week-end  fishing  and  preparing  for 
more  crowds  and  more  strenuosity  in  the  Canadian 
West. 

Through  those  two  days  the  train  seemed  to 
meander  in  a  leisurely  fashion  through  varied  and 
attractive  country,  only  stopping  now  and  then  as 
though  it  had  to  work  off  a  ceremonial  occasionally 
as  an  excuse  for  existing  at  all. 

The  route  ran  through  pleasant,  farmed  land  be- 
tween Montreal  and  North  Bay  and  Sudbury,  and 
then  switched  downward  through  the  bleak  nickel 
and  copper  country  to  the  beautiful  coast  of  Lake 
Huron  on  its  way  to  Sault  Ste.  Marie.  From  this 
town,  which  the  whole  Continent  knows  as  "  Soo,"  it 
plunged  north  through  the  magnificent  scenery  of  the 
Algoma  area  to  Oba,  and,  turning  west  again  (and 
in  the  night) ,  it  ran  on  to  Nipigon  Lake. 

It  was  a  genial  and  attractive  run.     We  sat,  as 

it  were,  lapped  in  the  serenity  of  the  C.P.R.,  and 

140 


On  the  Road  to  Trout  141 

studied  the  view.  Wherever  there  were  houses 
there  were  people,  to  wave  something  at  the  Prince's 
car.  At  one  homestead  a  man  and  his  wife  stood 
alone  near  the  split-rail  fence,  the  woman  curtsying, 
the  man,  who  had  obviously  been  a  soldier,  flag- 
wagging  some  message  we  could  not  catch,  with  a  big 
red  ensign;  an  infinitely  touching  sight,  that  couple 
getting  their  greeting  to  the  Prince  in  spite  of  diffi- 
culties. On  the  stations  the  local  school  children 
were  always  drawn  up  in  ranks,  most  of  them  hold- 
ing flags,  many  having  a  broad  red-white-and-blue 
ribbon  across  their  front  rank  to  show  their  patriot- 
ism. 

At  North  Bay,  a  purposeful  little  town  that  lets 
the  traveller  either  into  the  scenic  and  sporting  de- 
lights of  Lake  Nipissing,  or  into  the  mining  districts 
of  the  Timiskaming  country,  there  was  a  bright  little 
reception.  North  Bay  is  a  characteristic  Canadian 
town.  It  was  born  in  a  night,  so  to  speak,  and  its 
growth  outstrips  editions  of  guide  books.  Outside 
the  neat  station  there  is  a  big  grass  oblong,  and 
about  this  green  the  frame  houses  and  the  shops 
extend.  Behind  it  is  the  town  so  keen  on  growing  up 
about  the  big  railway  repair  shops,  that  it  has  no 
time  yet  to  give  to  road-making. 

The  ceremonial  was  In  the  green  oblong,  and  all 
North  Bay  left  their  houses  and  shops  to  attend. 
The  visit  had  more  the  air  of  a  family  party  than 
aught  else,  for,  after  a  mere  pretence  of  keeping 
ranks,  the  people  broke  in  upon  the  function,  and 
Prince  and  Staff  and  people  became  inextricably 
mixed.     When   His   Royal   Highness   took  car   to 


142    Westward  with  the  Vrince  of  Wales 

drive  around  the  town,  the  crowd  cut  off  the  cars 
in  the  procession,  and  for  half  an  hour  North  Bay 
was  full  of  orderlies  and  committee-men  automobil- 
ing  about  speculative  streets  in  search  of  a  missing 
Prince,  plus  one  Mayor. 

Sudbury,  the  same  type  of  town,  growing  at  a  dis- 
tracting pace  because  of  its  railway  connection  and 
its  smelting  plants,  had  the  same  sort  of  ceremony. 
From  here  we  passed  through  a  land  of  almost 
sinister  bleakness.  There  were  tracts  livid  and 
stark,  entirely  without  vegetation,  and  with  the  livid 
white  and  naked  surface  cut  into  wild  channels  and 
gullies  by  rains  that  must  have  been  as  pitiless  as 
the  land.  It  was  as  though  we  had  steamed  out  of 
a  human  land  into  the  drear  valleys  of  the  moon, 
and  one  expected  to  catch  glimpses  of  creatures  as 
terrifying  as  any  Mr.  Wells  has  imagined.  So 
cadaverous  a  realm  could  breed  little  else. 

It  was  the  country  of  nickel  and  copper.  We 
saw  occasionally  the  buildings  and  workings  (scarce 
less  grim  than  the  land)  through  the  agency  of  which 
came  the  grey  slime  that  had  rendered  the  country 
so  bleak.  They  are  particularly  rich  mines,  and 
rank  high  among  the  nickel  workings  in  the  world. 
They  were  also,  let  it  be  said,  of  immense  value  to 
the  Allies  during  the  war. 

Pushing  south,  the  line  soon  redeems  itself  in  the 
beauty  of  the  lakes.  It  bends  to  skirt  the  shore  of 
Lake  Huron,  a  great  blue  sea,  and  yet  but  a  link  in 
the  chain  of  great  lakes  that  lead  from  Superior 
through  it  to  Erie  and  Ontario  lakes,  and  on  to  the 
St.  Lawrence. 


On  the  Road  to  Trout  143 

We  arrived  on  a  beautiful  evening  at  Algoma,  a 
spot  as  delightful  as  a  Cornish  village,  on  the  beach 
of  that  inlet  of  Lake  Huron  called  Georgian  Bay. 
We  walked  in  the  astonishing  quiet  of  the  evening 
through  the  tiny  place,  and  along  the  deep,  sandy 
road  that  has  not  yet  been  won  from  the  primitive 
forests,  to  where  but  a  tiny  fillet  of  beach  stood  be- 
tween the  spruce  woods  and  the  vast  silence  of 
the  water.  From  that  serene  and  quiet  spot  wc 
looked  through  the  still  evening  to  the  far  and  beau- 
tiful islands. 

In  the  wonderful  clear  air,  and  with  all  the  soft 
colours  of  the  sunset  glowing  in  the  still  water,  the 
beauty  of  the  place  was  almost  too  poignant.  We 
might  have  been  the  discoverers  of  an  uninhabited 
bay  in  the  Islands  of  the  Blessed.  I  have  never 
known  any  place  so  remote,  so  still  and  so  beautiful. 
But  it  was  far  from  being  uninhabited.  There  were 
rustic  picnic  tables  under  the  spruce  trees,  and  there 
was  a  diving-board  standing  over  the  clear  water. 
The  inhabitants  of  Algoma  knew  the  worth  of  this 
place,  and  we  felt  them  to  be  among  the  luckiest 
people  on  the  earth. 

The  islands  we  saw  far  away  in  the  soft  beauty 
of  the  sunset,  and  between  which  the  enigmatic  light 
of  a  lake  steamer  was  moving,  are  said  to  be 
Hiawatha's  Islands.  In  any  case,  it  was  here  that 
the  pageant  of  Hiawatha  was  held  some  years  back, 
and  across  the  still  lake  in  that  pageant,  Hiawatha 
in  his  canoe  went  out  to  be  lost  in  the  glories  of  the 
sunset. 


144    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 


II 

On  the  morning  of  Tuesday,  September  4th,  the 
train  skirted  Georgian  Bay,  passing  many  small  vil- 
lages given  over  to  lumber  and  fishing,  and  all  hav- 
ing, with  their  tiny  jetties,  motor  launches  and  sail- 
ing boats,  something  of  the  perfection  of  scenes 
viewed  in  a  clear  mirror.  By  mid-morning  the  train 
reached  Sault  Ste.  Marie. 

"  Soo  "  is  a  vivid  place.  It  is  a  young  city  on  the 
rise.  A  handful  of  years  ago  it  was  a  French  mis- 
sion, beginning  to  turn  its  eyes  languidly  towards 
lumber.  It  is  on  the  neck  that  joins  the  waters  of 
Superior  and  Huron,  but  the  only  through  traffic 
was  that  of  the  voyageurs,  who  made  the  portage 
round  the  stiff  St.  Mary's  Rapids,  that,  with  a  drop 
of  eighteen  feet  in  their  length,  forbade  any  vessel 
but  that  of  the  canoe  of  the  adventurer  to  pass  their 
troubled  waters. 

Then  America  and  Canada  began  to  build  canals 
and  locks  to  link  the  great  lakes,  in  spite  of  the 
Rapids,  and  *'  Soo  "  woke.  It  has  been  awake  and 
living  since  that  moment.  It  has  been  playing  lock 
against  lock  with  the  Michigan  men  across  the  river, 
each  planning  cunningly  to  establish  a  system  that 
will  carry  the  long  lake  vessels  not  only  in  locks  be- 
fitting their  size,  but  in  locks  that  can  be  handled 
more  swiftly  than  those  of  the  rival. 

At  the  moment  the  prize  is  with  Canada.  It  has 
a  lock  nine  hundred  feet  long,  and  can  do  the  busi- 
ness of  lowering  a  great  vessel  from  Superior  to 
Huron  with  one  action,  where  America  uses  four 


On  the  Road  to  Trout  145 

locks.  The  Americans  have  a  larger  lock  than  the 
Canadian,  but  the  Canadians  are  quicker. 

And  this  means  something.  The  traffic  on  these 
lakes  is  greater  than  the  traffic  on  many  seas.  Down 
this  vast  water  highway  come  the  narrow  pencils  of 
lake-boats  carrying  grain  and  ore  and  lumber  in  hulls 
that  are  all  hold.  They  come  and  go  incessantly. 
"  Soo,"  indeed,  handles  about  three  times  the  ton- 
nage of  Suez  yearly,  and  there  is  the  American  side 
to  add  to  that. 

With  this  brisk  movement  of  commercial  life 
within  her,  "  Soo  "  has  thrived  like  a  cold.  Where, 
in  the  old  days,  the  local  inhabitants  could  be 
reckoned  on  the  fingers  of  two  hands,  there  is  now 
a  city  of  about  twenty  thousand,  and  it  is  still  grow- 
ing. It  is  a  city  of  graceful  streets  and  neat  houses 
climbing  over  the  Laurentine  Hills  that  make  the 
site.  It  is  breezy  and  self-assured,  and  draws  its 
comfortable  affluence  from  its  shipping,  its  paper- 
mills,  its  steel  works,  as  well  as  from  lumber,  agri- 
culture and  other  industries. 

It  met  the  Prince  as  becomes  a  youth  of  promise. 
Crowds  massed  on  the  lawns  before  the  red  sand- 
stone station,  and  in  all  the  streets  there  were 
crowds.  And  crowds  followed  his  every  movement, 
however  swift  it  was,  for  "  Soo  "  has  the  automobile 
fever  as  badly  as  any  other  town  in  Canada,  and 
car  owners  packed  their  families,  even  to  the 
youngest  in  arms,  into  tonneaux  and  joined  a  proces- 
sion a  mile  long,  that  followed  the  Prince  about  the 
town. 

It  is  true  that  some  of  the  crowd  was  America  out 


146    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

to  look  at  Royalty.  Americans  were  not  slow  to 
make  the  most  of  the  fact  that  they  were  to  have  a 
Prince  across  the  river.  From  early  morning  the 
ferry  that  runs  from  Michigan  to  the  British  Em- 
pire was  packed  with  Republican  autos  and  Repub- 
licans on  foot,  all  eager  to  be  there  when  Royalty  ar- 
rived. They  gathered  in  the  streets  and  joined  In 
the  procession.  They  gave  the  Prince  the  hearty 
greeting  of  good-fellows.  They  were  as  good 
friends  of  his  as  anybody  there.  They  did,  in  fact, 
give  us  a  foretaste  of  what  we  were  to  expect  when 
the  Prince  went  to  the  United  States. 

There  were  the  usual  functions.  They  took  place 
high  on  a  hill,  from  which  the  Prince  could  look 
down  upon  the  blue  waters  of  the  linked  lakes,  the 
many  factory  chimneys,  the  smoke  of  which  threw  a 
quickening  sense  of  human  endeavour  athwart  the 
scene,  and  the  great  jack-knife  girder  bridge,  that 
is  the  railway  connection  between  Canada  and  Amer- 
ica, but  above  the  usual  functions  the  visit  to  "  Soo  " 
had  items  that  made  it  particularly  interesting. 

He  went  to  the  great  lock  that  carries  the  interlake 
traffic.  He  crossed  from  one  side  of  it  to  the  other, 
and  then  stood  out  on  the  lock  gate,  while  it  was 
opened  to  allow  the  passage  of  several  small  vessels. 
From  here  he  went  to  the  Algoma  Railway,  at  the 
head  of  the  canal,  and  in  a  special  car  was  taken  to 
the  rapids  that  tumble  down  in  foam  between  the 
two  countries. 

The  train  was  brought  to  a  standstill  at  the  inter- 
national boundary,  where  two  sentries,  Canadian 
and  American,  face  each  other,  and  where  there  was 


On  the  Road  to  Trout  147 

another  big  crowd,  this  time  all  American,  to  give 
him  a  cheer. 

He  then  spent  some  time  visiting  the  paper  mill 
that  helps  to  make  "  Soo  "  rich.  He  went  over  it 
department  by  department,  asking  many  questions 
and  showing  that  the  processes  fascinated  him  in- 
tensely. In  the  same  way  he  went  through  the  steel 
works,  and  was  again  intrigued  by  the  sight  of 
"  things  doing."  It  was,  as  he  said  himself,  one  of 
the  most  interesting  days  he  had  spent  in  the  Do- 
minion. 

Ill 

*'  Soo  "  let  us  into  a  wonderful  tract  of  country. 

Still  in  the  sumptuous  C.P.R.  train,  we  swung 
north  over  the  Algoma  Railway  track  into  a  land  so 
wildly  magnificent  and  yet  so  lonely,  that  one  felt 
that  the  railway  line  must  have  been  built  by  poets 
for  poets  —  we  could  not  imagine  it  thriving  on  any- 
thing else. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  does  link  up  rich  mining 
and  other  territory,  and,  in  time,  will  open  a  land  of 
equal  value,  but  just  now  its  chief  asset  is  scenery. 

The  scenery  is  superb.  Its  hills  are  huge  and 
battlemented.  They  leap  up  sheer  above  the  train, 
menacing  it;  they  drop  down  starkly,  leaving  the 
line  clinging  to  a  ledge  above  a  white,  angry  stream 
on  a  white  rock  bed.  They  crowd  the  line  into 
gorges,  from  which  the  sun  is  banished,  and  where 
the  moveless  firs  look  like  lost  souls  chained  in  the 
gloom  of  Eblis.  They  expand  abruptly,  suddenly, 
into  swinging  valleys,   on  whose   great   flanks   the 


148    Westward  with  the  Fnnce  of  Wales 

spruce  forests  look  like  toy  decorations  hanging 
above  floors  of  shining  sapphire  —  lakes,  of  course, 
but  one  could  not  think  that  any  lake  could  be  so 
blue. 

Lakes  fretted  Into  lagoons  by  thin  white  slivers  of 
shingle;  rivers  full  of  tumbled  and  dishevelled  logs; 
forests  In  green,  In  which  the  crimson  maple  leaf 
burns  brightly;  vast  amphitheatres  of  cllff-like  hills; 
mounds  of  the  stark  Laurentlne  rock  pushing  up 
through  trees  like  bald  heads  through  the  sparse 
covering  of  departing  hair;  miles  of  blanched  trees 
and  black  trees  standing  like  skeletons  or  strewn  all- 
whlther,  like  billets  of  stick  —  acres  of  murdered 
stumps,  where  evil  forest  fires  have  swept  along; 
and  we  had  even  an  occasional  glimpse  of  that 
scourge  of  Canada  seen  smoking  sullenly  In  the  dis- 
tance —  all  this  heaped  together,  piled  together  in  a 
reckless  luxuriance  makes  up  the  scenery  of  the 
Algoma  country. 

Only  rarely  does  one  see  the  hut  of  rough  logs 
and  clay  that  denotes  the  settler,  only  occasionally 
is  there  a  station,  or  a  mill  or  a  logging  camp  In  this 
womb  of  loneliness.  Only  occasionally  does  one 
cross  one  of  those  lengthy  and  rakish  spider  bridges 
that  give  a  hint  of  man  and  his  works. 

On  a  long  bridge,  over  the  Montreal  river,  we 
made  the  most  of  man  and  his  works.  It  Is  a 
lengthy,  curving  bridge,  built  giddily  on  stilts  above 
the  boulder-strewn  bed  of  a  wicked  stream.  We 
■wrerc  admiring  it  as  a  desperate  work  of  engineering, 
when  the  train  stopped  with  a  disconcerting  bump. 
It  stopped  with  violence.     And  when  we  had  picked 


On  the  Road  to  Trout  149 

ourselves  up  we  looked  out  of  the  train  and  saw  noth- 
ing —  only  that  particularly  vicious  river  and  those 
unpleasantly  jagged  rocks. 

When  one  is  on  a  Canadian  bridge  this  is  all  one 
sees  —  the  depth  one  is  going  to  drop,  and  what  one 
is  going  to  drop  on.  The  top  of  the  bridge  is  wide 
enough  for  the  rails  only,  and  the  sides  of  the  car- 
riages hang  beyond  the  rails.  And  there  are  no 
parapets.  One  just  looks  plumb  down.  We  looked 
down,  and  back  and  forward.  The  struts  and 
girders  of  the  bridge  seemed  made  of  pack-thread 
and  spider's  web.  We  wondered  why  we  should 
have  stopped  in  the  middle  of  such  a  place  of  all 
places.  And  the  train  looked  so  enormous.  We 
asked  the  superintendent  if  the  bridge  could  hold  it. 

He  said  he  thought  so,  but  it  had  never  been  tested 
by  such  a  weight  before. 

From  the  way  he  said  "  thought,"  we  gathered  he 
meant  "  hoped." 

Somebody  had  wanted  to  show  the  Prince  the 
view.  It  was  a  fine  view,  but  we  were  not  sorry  it 
wasn't  permanent.  With  the  view,  the  Prince  took 
in  a  little  shooting  at  clay  pigeons  in  view  of  the  days 
he  was  to  spend  in  sporting  Nipigon. 

We  ran  straight  on  to  Nipigon,  only  stopping  at 
Oba,  and  that  in  the  night.  But  before  the  night 
came  Canada  and  Algoma  gave  us  an  exquisite  sun- 
set. We  saw  the  light  of  the  sun  on  a  vast  stretch 
of  hummocks  and  hills  of  bald  rock.  They  had  been 
clothed  with  forest  before  the  fires  had  passed  over 
them.  As  the  sun  set,  an  exquisite  thin  cherry  light 
shone  evenly  on  the  hills  and  bluffs,  and  on  the  thin 


150    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

and  naked  trees  that  stood  up  like  wands  in  this  eerie 
and  clarified  light.  In  the  distance  there  was  a  faint 
vermilion  in  the  sky,  and  where  the  tree  stumps 
fringed  the  bare  hills,  they  gave  the  suggestion  of  a 
band  of  violet  edging  the  land.  And  all  this  in  an 
air  as  clear  and  shining  as  still  water.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  Canada  was  waiting  there  for  a  painter  of 
a  new  vision  to  catch  its  wonder. 

Even  in  the  loneliness  we  were  never  far  away 
from  the  human  equation.  During  the  afternoon  we 
had  a  touch  of  it.  It  was  discovered  by  the  Prince 
that  his  train  was  being  driven  by  a  V.C.,  or,  rather, 
one  of  the  men  on  the  engine,  the  fireman,  was  a 
V.C.  This  man,  Staff-Sergeant  Meryfield,  had  won 
the  distinction  at  Cambrai,  and  had  returned  to  his 
calling  in  the  ordinary  way.  He  came  back  from  the 
engine  cab  through  the  train,  a  very  modest  fellow, 
to  be  presented  to  the  Prince,  who  spent  a  few 
minutes  chatting  with  him. 


CHAPTER  XII 

PICNICS   AND    PRAIRIES 


EARLY  on  the  morning  of  Friday,  September 
5th,  the  train  passed  through  the  second  tun- 
nel it  had  encountered  in  Canada,  and  came 
to  a  small  stopping-place  amid  trees. 

It  was  a  lady's  pocket  handkerchief  of  a  station, 
made  up  of  a  tool  shed,  a  few  houses  and  a  road 
leading  away  from  it.  Its  significance  lay  in  the 
road  leading  away  from  it.  That  road  leads  to 
Nipigon  river  and  lake,  one  of  the  finest  trout  waters 
in  Canada.  Even  at  that  it  is  only  famous  half  the 
year,  for  it  hibernates  in  winter  like  any  other  thing 
in  Canada  that  finds  snow  and  remoteness  too  much 
for  it. 

At  this  station  —  Nipigon  Lodge  —  the  Prince,  in 
shooting  knickers  and  a  great  anxiety  to  be  off  and 
away,  left  the  train  at  8.30,  and  walking  along  the 
road,  came  to  the  launch  that  was  to  take  him  down 
river  to  the  fishing  camp  where  he  was  to  spend  a 
week-end  of  sport. 

Leaving  this  little  waterside  village  of  neglected 
fishermen's  huts,  for  the  season  was  late  and  the 
tourists  that  usually  fill  them  had  all  gone,  he  went 
down  the  beautiful  stream  to  the  more  than  beautiful 
Virgin  Falls.     Here  he  met  his  outfit,   thirty-eight 

J51 


1^2    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

Indian  guides,  all  of  them  experts  in  camp  life  and 
cunning  in  the  secrets  of  stream  and  wood. 

In  the  care  of  these  high  priests  of  sport,  he  left 
civilization,  in  the  shape  of  the  launch,  behind  him, 
and  in  a  canoe  fished  down  stream  until  the  lovely 
reaches  of  Split-rock  were  attained;  here,  on  the 
banks  of  the  stream,  amid  the  thick  ranks  of  spruce, 
the  camp  was  pitched. 

At  first  it  had  been  the  intention  to  push  on  after 
a  day's  sport  to  other  camping-places,  but  the  situa- 
tion and  the  comfort  of  this  camp  was  so  satisfactory 
that  the  Prince  decided  to  stay,  and  made  it  his  head- 
quarters during  the  week-end. 

It  was  no  camp  of  amateur  sportsmen  playing  at 
the  game.  It  was  not,  perhaps,  "  roughing  "  it  as 
the  woodsman  knows  it,  for  he  lies  hard  In  a  floor- 
less  tent  (if  he  has  one),  as  well  as  lives  laboriously, 
but  it  v/as  certainly  a  rough  and  ready  life,  as  near 
that  of  the  woodsman  as  possible. 

The  Prince  slept  in  a  tent,  rose  early,  bathed  in  the 
river  and  shaved  in  the  open  in  exactly  the  same 
manner  as  every  one  else  in  the  party.  He  took  his 
place  In  the  "  grub  queue,"  carrying  his  plate  to  the 
cook-house  and  demanding  his  particular  choice  in 
bacon  and  eggs,  broiled  trout,  flapjacks,  or  the 
wonderful  white  flatbread,  which  the  cook,  an 
Indian,  Jimmy  Bouchard,  celebrated  for  open-fire 
cooking,  knew  how  to  prepare. 

Sometimes  before  breakfast  the  Prince  Indulged 
his  passion  for  running;  always  after  breakfast  he 
set  out  on  foot,  or  in  canoe  for  the  day's  fishing,  re- 
turning  late   at   night   hungry   and   tired   with   the 


Picnics  and  Prairies  153 

healthy  weariness  of  hard  exertion  to  the  camp  meal. 
There  were  spells  round  the  big  camp  fire  burning 
vividly  amid  the  trees,  and  then  sleep  in  the  tent. 

The  fishing  was  usually  done  from  the  bass  canoe, 
two  Indian  guides  being  always  the  ship's  company. 
And  fishing  was  not  the  only  attraction  of  the  stream 
and  lake.  There  is  always  the  thrilling,  placid  beauty 
of  the  scenery,  the  deep  forests,  the  lake  valleys, 
and  the  austere,  forest-clad  hills  that  rise  abruptly 
from  the  enigmatic  pools.  And  there  is  the  active 
beauty  of  the  many  rapids,  those  piled-up  and  rush- 
ing masses  of  angry  water,  tossing  and  foaming  in 
pent-up   force  through   rock  gates  and  over  rocks. 

He  tried  the  adventure  of  these  rapids,  shooting 
through  the  tortured  waters  that  look  so  beautiful 
from  the  shore  and  so  terrible  from  the  frail  struc- 
ture of  a  canoe,  until  it  seemed  to  him  as  though  not 
even  the  skill  of  his  guides  could  steer  through  safely. 
He  got  through  safely,  but  only  after  an  experience 
which  he  described  as  the  most  exciting  in  his  life. 

The  fishing  itself  proved  disappointing.  The 
famous  speckled  trout  of  Nipigon  did  not  rise  to  the 
occasion,  and  the  sport  was  fair,  but  not  extraordin- 
ary. The  best  day  brought  in  twenty-seven  fish, 
the  largest  being  three  and  a  half  pounds,  not  a 
good  specimen  of  the  lake's  trout,  which  go  to  six 
and  eight  pounds  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things. 

And  the  disappointment  had  an  irony  of  its  own. 
The  man  who  caught  the  most  fish  was  the  man  who 
couldn't  fish  at  all.  The  ofl^cial  photographer,  who 
had  gone  solely  to  take  snapshots,  also  took  the 
maximum  of  fish  out  of  the  river.     Indeed,  he  was  so 


154    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

much  of  an  amateur  that  the  first  fish  he  caught 
placed  him  In  such  a  predicament  that  he  did  not 
play  It,  but  landed  It  with  so  vigorous  a  jerk  that  It 
flew  over  his  head  and  caught  high  In  a  fir.  An 
Indian  guide  had  to  climb  the  tree  to  "  land  "  It. 

Nevertheless,  he  caught  the  most  fish,  and  when  he 
returned  with  his  spoil,  the  Prince  said  to  him: 

"  Look  here,  don't  you  realize  I'm  the  one  to  do 
that?     You're  taking  my  place  in  the  program." 

The  reason  for  the  Indifferent  sport  was  probably 
the  lateness  of  the  season  —  It  was  practically  fin- 
ished when  the  Prince  arrived  —  and  the  fact  that 
NIpIgon  had  had  a  record  summer,  with  large  parties 
of  sportsmen  working  Its  reaches  steadily  all  the 
time.  The  fish  were  certainly  shy,  particularly,  It 
seemed,  of  fly,  and  the  best  catches  were  made  with 
a  small  fish,  a  sort  of  bull-headed  minnow  called 
cocatoose,  that  creeps  about  close  to  the  rocks. 

Of  course,  trout,  even  If  famous,  are  naturally 
temperamental.  They  will  rise  in  dozens  at  unex- 
pected times,  just  as  they  will  refuse  all  temptations 
for  weeks  on  end.  An  Englishman,  and  no  mean 
fisherman,  once  went  to  NIpIgon  to  show  the  local 
Inhabitants  how  fishing  should  be  done.  A  master 
In  British  waters,  he  considered  the  speckled 
monsters  of  the  lakes  fit  victims  for  his  rod  and  fly. 
He  went  out  with  his  guides  to  catch  fish,  and  after 
a  few  days  among  the  big  trout  came  back  disgusted. 

*'  Did  you  catch  any  trout?  "  he  was  asked  by  one 
of  his  party. 

"  Catch  'em,"  he  snapped.  "  How  can  one  catch 
'em?     The  Infernal  things  are  anchored." 


Picnics  and  Prairies  155 

Walking  and  duck  shooting  was  also  in  the  pro- 
gram, and  there  were  other  excitements. 

The  weather,  delightful  during  the  first  two  days, 
broke  on  Sunday,  and  there  were  bad  winds,  rain- 
storms and  occasional  hailstorms,  when  stones  as  big 
as  small  pebbles  drummed  on  the  tents  and  bom- 
barded the  camp. 

So  fierce  was  the  wind  that  the  Royal  Standard 
on  a  high  flagstaff  was  carried  away.  A  pine  tree 
was  also  uprooted,  and  fell  with  a  crash  between  the 
Prince's  tent  and  that  of  one  of  his  suite.  A  yard 
either  way  and  the  tent  would  have  been  crushed. 
Fortunately  the  Prince  was  not  In  the  tent  at  that 
moment,  but  the  happening  gave  the  camp  its  sense 
of  adventure. 

During  this  rest,  too,  the  Prince  suffered  a  little 
from  his  eyes,  an  Irritation  caused  by  grains  of  steel 
that  had  blown  into  them  while  viewing  the  works 
at  "  Soo."  His  right  hand  was  also  painful  from 
the  heartiness  of  Toronto,  and  the  knuckles  swollen. 
To  set  these  matters  right,  the  doctor  went  up  from 
the  train,  and  by  the  Indian  canoe  that  carried  the 
mail  and  the  daily  news  bulletin,  reached  the  camp. 

When  he  returned  on  Monday,  September  8th, 
the  Prince  was  looking  undeniably  fit.  He  marched 
up  the  railway  from  the  lake  In  footer-shorts  and 
golf  jacket,  with  an  air  of  one  who  had  thoroughly 
enjoyed  "  roughing  It." 

II 

While  the  Prince  and  his  party  were  camping,  the 
train  remained  in  Niplgon,  a  tiny  village  set  In  com- 


156    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

plete  isolation  on  the  edge  of  the  river  and  in  the 
heart  of  the  woods. 

It  is  a  little  germ-culture  of  humanity  cut  off  from 
the  world.  The  only  way  out  is,  apparently,  the  rail- 
way, though,  perhaps,  one  could  get  away  by  the 
boats  that  come  up  to  load  pulp  wood,  or  by  the 
petrol  launches  that  scurry  out  on  to  Lake  Superior 
and  its  waterside  towns.  But  the  roads  out  of  it, 
there  appear  to  be  none.  Follow  any  track,  and  it 
fades  away  gently  into  the  primitive  bush. 

It  is  a  nest  of  loneliness  that  has  carried  on  after 
its  old  office  as  a  big  fur  collecting  post  —  you  see 
the  original  offices  of  Revillon  Freres  and  the  Hud- 
son Bay  Company  standing  today  —  has  gone. 
Now  it  lives  on  lumber  and  the  fishing,  and  one 
wonders  what  else. 

Its  tiny  station,  through  which  the  Transcontin- 
ental trains  thunder,  is  faced  by  a  long,  straggling 
green,  and  fringing  the  green  is  a  row  of  wooden 
shops  and  houses  equally  straggling.  They  have  a 
somnolent  and  spiritless  air.  Behind  is  a  wedge  of 
pretty  dwellings  stretching  down  to  the  river,  tailing 
off  into  an  Indian  encampment  by  the  stream,  where, 
about  dingy  tepees,  a  dozen  or  so  stoic  children  play. 

There  are  three  hundred  souls  in  the  village, 
mainly  Finns  and  Indians  become  Canadians.  They 
are  not  the  Indians  of  Fenimore  Cooper,  but  men 
who  wear  peaked  caps,  bright  blouse  shirts  or 
sweaters,  with  broad  yellow,  blue  and  white  stripes 
(a  popular  article  of  wear  all  over  Canada),  and 
women  who  wear  the  shin  skirts  and  silks  of  civiliza- 
tion.    Only   here   and   there    one    sees    old   squaw 


Picnics  and  Prairies  157 

women,  stout  and  brown  and  bent,  with  the  plaiJ 
shawl  of  modernity  making  up  for  the  moccasins  of 
their  ancient  race. 

Small  though  it  is,  or  perhaps  because  it  is  so  small 
and  observable,  Nipigon  is  an  example  of  the  am- 
algam from  which  the  Canadian  race  is  being  fused. 
We  went,  for  instance,  to  a  dance  given  by  the  Finns 
in  their  varnished,  brown-wood  hall  on  the  Saturday 
night.  It  was  an  attractive  and  interesting  evening. 
The  whole  of  the  village,  without  distinction,  ap- 
peared to  be  there.  And  they  mixed.  Indian 
women  in  the  silk  stockings,  high  heels  and  glowing 
frocks  of  suburbia,  danced  (and  danced  well)  with 
high  cheek-boned,  monosyllabic  Finns  in  grey  sweat- 
ers, workaday  trousers  and  coats  and  bubble-toed 
boots.  A  vivid  Canadian  girl  in  semi-evening  dress 
went  round  in  the  jazz  with  a  guard  of  the  Royal 
train.  A  policeman  from  the  train  danced  with  a 
Finnish  girl,  demur  and  well-dressed,  who  might  have 
been  anything  from  the  leader  of  local  Society  to  a 
clerk  (i.e.,  a  counter  hand)  in  one  of  the  shops. 
For  all  we  knew,  the  plumber  might  have  been  danc- 
ing with  the  leading  citizen's  daughter,  and  the  local 
Astor  with   the  local  dressmaker's   assistant. 

In  any  case,  it  didn't  matter.  In  Canada  they 
don't  think  about  that  sort  of  thing.  They  were  all 
unconcerned  and  happy  in  the  big,  generous  spirit  of 
equality  that  makes  Canada  the  home  of  one  big 
family  rather  than  the  dwelling-place  of  different 
classes  and  social  grades.  This  fact  was  not  new  to 
us;  naturally,  we  had  seen  and  mixed  with  Canadians 
in   hotels   and   on   the   street   elsewhere.     In   those 


158    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

gathering-places  of  humanity,  the  hotels,  we  had 
lived  with  the  big,  jolly,  homely  crowds  without 
social  strata,  who  might  very  well  have  changed 
places  with  the  waiters  and  the  waiters  with  them 
without  anybody  noticing  any  difference.  That 
would  not  have  meant  a  loss  of  dignity  to  anybody. 
Nobody  has  any  use  for  social  status  in  the  Domin- 
ion, the  only  standard  being  whether  a  man  is  a 
"  mixer  "  or  not. 

By  way  of  a  footnote,  I  might  say  that  waiters, 
even  as  waiters,  are  on  the  way  to  take  seats  as 
guests,  since,  apparently,  waiting  is  only  an  occupa- 
tion a  man  takes  up  until  he  finds  something  worth 
while.  Not  unexpectedly  Canadian  waiting  suffers 
through  this. 

What  we  had  seen  in  the  large  towns,  and  in  the 
large  gregarious  life  of  cities,  we  saw  "  close  up  "  at 
Nipigon.  The  varied  crowd,  Finns,  British,  Cana- 
dian and  Indian  (one  of  the  Indians,  a  young  dandy, 
had  served  with  distinction  during  the  war,  had 
married  a  white  Canadian,  and  was  one  of  the  richest 
men  present),  danced  without  social  distinctions  in 
that  pleasant  hall  to  Finn  folk-songs  that  had  never 
been  set  down  on  paper  played  on  an  accordion.  It 
was  a  delightful  evening. 

For  the  rest,  those  with  the  train  fished  (or, 
rather,  went  through  all  the  ritual  with  little  of  the 
results),  walked,  bathed  in  the  lake,  watched  the 
American  "  movie  "  men  in  their  endeavours  to  con- 
vert the  British  to  baseball,  or  endeavoured,  with  as 
little  success,  to  convert  the  baseball  "  fans "  to 
cricket.     The  recreations  of  Nipigon  were  not  hectic, 


Picnics  a72d  Prairies  159 

and  we  were  glad  to  get  on  to  towns  and  massed  life 
again. 

I  confess  our  view  of  Nipigon  of  the  hundred 
houses  was  not  that  of  the  Indian  boy  who  dis- 
cussed it  with  us.  He  told  us  Nipigon  was  not  the 
place  for  him. 

"  You  wait,"  he  said.  "  Next  year  I  go.  Next 
year  I  am  fifteen.  Then  I  go  out  into  the  woods. 
I  go  right  away.     I  can't  stand  this  city  life." 


Ill 

Canada,  on  Monday,  September  8th,  demon- 
strated its  amazing  faculty  for  startling  contrasts. 
It  lifted  the  Prince  from  the  primitive  to  the  ultra- 
modern in  a  single  movement.  In  the  morning  he 
was  in  the  silent  forests  of  Nipigon,  a  tract  so  wild 
that  man  seemed  no  nearer  than  a  thousand  miles. 
Three  hours  later  he  was  moving  amid  the  dense 
crowds  that  filled  the  streets  of  the  latest  word  in 
industrial  cities. 

He  stepped  straight  from  Nipigon  to  the  twin 
cities  of  Port  Arthur  and  Fort  William.  These  two 
cities  are  really  one,  and  together  form  the  great 
trade  pool  into  which  the  traffic  of  the  vast  grain- 
bearing  West  and  North-West  pours  for  transport 
on  the  Great  Lakes. 

These  two  cities  sprang  from  the  little  human 
nucleus  made  up  of  a  Jesuit  mission  and  a  Hudson 
Bay  Company  depot  of  the  old  days.  They  stand  on 
Thunder  Bay,  a  deep-water  sack,  thrusting  out  from 
Lake    Superior    under    the    slopes    of    flat-topped 


i6o    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

Thunder  Cape.  The  situation  is  ideal  for  handling 
the  trade  of  the  great  lake  highway  that  swings  the 
traffic  through  the  heart  of  the  Western  continent. 

Port  Arthur  and  Fort  William  have  seen  their 
chances  and  made  the  most  of  them.  They  have 
constructed  great  wharves  along  the  bay  to  accommo- 
date a  huge  traffic.  Over  the  wharves  they  have 
built  up  the  greatest  grain  elevators  in  the  world, 
not  a  few  of  them  but  a  series,  until  the  cities  seemed 
to  be  inhabited  solely  by  these  giants.  These  ele- 
vators and  stores  collect  and  distribute  the  vast 
streams  of  grain  that  pour  in  from  the  prairies,  at 
whose  door  the  cities  stand,  distributing  it  across 
the  lakes  to  the  cities  of  America,  or  along  the  lakes 
to  the  Canadian  East  and  the  railways  that  tranship 
it  to  Europe. 

On  the  quays  are  the  towering  lattices  of  patent 
derricks,  forests  of  them,  that  handle  coal  and 
ore  and  cargoes  of  infinite  variety.  And  the 
derricks  and  the  elevators  are  the  uncannily  long  and 
lean  lake  freighters,  ships  with  a  tiny  deck  superstruc- 
ture forward  of  a  great  rake  of  hold,  and  a  tiny 
engine-house  astern  under  the  stack.  And  by  these 
grain  boats  are  the  ore  tramps  and  coal  boats  from 
Lake  Erie,  and  cargo  boats  with  paper  pulp  for 
England  made  in  the  big  mills  that  turn  the  forests 
about  Lake  Superior  into  riches. 

Not  content  with  docking  boats,  the  twin  cities 
build  them.  They  build  with  equal  ease  a  10,000- 
ton  freighter,  or  a  great  sky-scraping  tourist  boat  to 
ply  between  Canada  and  the  American  shores.  And 
presently  it  will  be  sending  its  10,000-tonners  direct 


Picnics  and  Prairies  161 

to  Liverpool;  they  only  await  the  deepening  of  the 
Welland  Canal  near  Niagara  before  starting  a  regu- 
lar service  on  this  4,000-mile  voyage. 

They  are  modern  cities,  indeed,  that  snatch  every 
chance  for  wealth  and  progress,  and  use  even  the 
power  that  Nature  gives  in  numerous  falls  to  work 
their  dynamos,  and  through  them  their  many  mills 
and  factories.  And  the  marvel  of  these  cities  is  that 
they  are  inland  cities  —  inland  ports  thousands  of 
miles  from  the  nearest  salt  water. 

These  places  gave  the  Prince  the  welcome  of  ar- 
dent twins.  Their  greeting  was  practically  one,  for 
though  the  train  made  two  stops,  and  there  were  two 
sets  of  functions,  there  are  only  a  few  minutes'  train- 
time  between  them,  and  the  greetings  seemed  of  a 
continuous  whole. 

Port  Arthur  had  the  Prince  first  for  a  score  of 
minutes,  in  which  crowds  about  the  station  showed 
their  welcome  in  the  Canadian  way.  It  was  here 
we  first  came  in  touch  with  the  "  Mounties,"  the  fine 
men  of  the  Royal  North-West  Mounted  Police, 
whose  scarlet  coats,  jaunty  stetsons,  blue  breeches 
and  high  tan  boots  set  off  the  carriage  of  an  excel- 
lently set-up  body  of  men.  They  acted  as  escort 
while  the  Prince  drove  into  the  town  to  a  charming 
collegiate  garden,  where  the  Mayor  tried  to  welcome 
him  formally. 

Tried  is  the  only  word.  How  could  Prince  or 
Mayor  be  formal  when  both  stood  in  the  heart  of  a 
crowd  so  close  together  that  when  the  Mayor  read 
his  address  the  document  rested  on  the  Prince's  chest, 
while  at  the  Prince's  elbows  crowded  little  boys  and 


i62    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

other  distinguished  citizens?  Formal  or  not,  it  was 
very  human  and  very  pleasant. 

Returning  through  the  town,  something  went 
wrong  with  the  procession.  Many  of  the  automo- 
biles forcing  their  way  through  the  crowd  to  the  train 
—  which  stood  beside  the  street  —  found  there  was 
no  Prince.  We  stood  about  asking  what  was  hap- 
pening and  where  It  was  happening.  After  ten  min- 
utes of  this  an  automobile  driver  strolled  over  from 
a  car  and  asked  "  what  was  doing  now?  " 

We  consulted  the  programs  and  told  him  that 
the  Prince  was  launching  a  ship. 

'*  He  Is,  is  he?  "  said  the  driver  without  passion. 
"  Well,  I've  got  members  of  the  shipbuilding  com- 
pany and  half  the  reception  committee  In  my  car." 

In  spite  of  that,  the  Prince  launched  a  fine  boat, 
that  took  the  water  broadside  In  the  lake  manner, 
before  going  on  to  Fort  William. 

Fort  William  had  an  Immense  crowd  upon  the 
green  before  the  station,  on  the  station,  and  even  on 
the  station  buildings.  Part  of  the  crowd  was  made 
up  of  children,  each  one  of  them  a  representative  of 
the  nationalities  that  came  from  the  Old  World  to 
find  a  new  life  and  a  new  home  in  Canada.  Each 
of  them  was  dressed  In  his  or  her  national  costume, 
making  an  interesting  picture. 

There  were  twenty-four  children,  each  of  a  differ- 
ent race,  and  the  races  ranged  from  France  to  Slov- 
enia, from  Persia  to  China  and  Syria.  There  were 
negroes  and  Siamese  and  Czecho-Slovaks  in  this  re- 
markable collection  of  elements  from  whose  fusion 
Canada  of  today  Is  being  fashioned. 


Picnics  and  Prairies  163 

The  Prince  drove  through  the  cheering  streets  of 
Fort  William,  and  paid  visits  to  some  of  the  great 
industrial  concerns,  before  setting  out  for  Winnipeg 
and  the  wide-flung  spaces  of  the  West. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE    CITY   OF    WHEAT WINNIPEG,    MANITOBA 


WE  had  a  hint  of  what  the  Western  welcome 
was  going  to  be  like  from  the  Winnipeg 
papers  that  were  handed  to  us  with  our 
cantaloupe  at  breakfast  on  Tuesday,  September  9th. 
They  were  concerning  themselves  brightly  and 
strenuously  with  the  details  of  the  visit  that  day, 
and  were  also  offering  real  Western  advice  on  the 
etiquette  of  clothes. 

"SILK   LIDS   AND    STRIPED    PANTS   FOR 
THE  BIG  DAY  " 

formed  the  main  headline,  taking  the  place  of  space 
usually  given  to  Baseball  reports  or  other  vital  news. 
And  pen  pictures  of  Western  thrill  were  given  of 
leading  men  chasing  in  and  out  of  the  stores  of  the 
town  in  an  attempt  to  buy  a  "  Silk  Lid  "  (a  top  hat) 
in  order  to  be  fit  to  figure  at  receptions. 

The  writer  had  even  broken  into  verse  to  describe 
the  emotions  of  the  occasion.  Despairing  of  prose 
he  wrote: 

Get  out  the  old  silk  bonnet, 
Iron  a  new  shine  on  it. 

Just  pretend  your  long-tailed  coat  does  not  seem  queer, 

164 


The  City  of  Wheat  165 

For  we'll  be  all  proper 

As  a  crossing  "  copper  " 

When  the  Prince  of  AVales  is  here. 

The  Ladies'  Page  also  caught  the  infection.  It 
crossed  its  page  with  a  wail: 

"GIRLS!     OH,   GIRLS!     SILVER    SLIPPERS 
CANNOT  BE  HAD!" 

and  it  went  on  for  columns  to  tell  how  silver  slippers 
were  the  only  kind  the  Prince  would  look  at.  He 
had  chosen  all  partners  at  all  balls  in  all  towns  by 
the  simple  method  of  looking  for  silver  slippers. 
The  case  of  those  without  silver  slippers  was  hope- 
less. The  maidens  of  Winnipeg  well  knew  this. 
There  had  been  a  silver  slipper  battue  through  all 
the  stores,  and  all  had  gone  —  it  was,  so  one  felt 
from  the  article,  a  crisis  for  all  those  who  had  been 
slow. 

A  rival  paper  somewhat  calmed  the  anxious  citi- 
zens by  stating  that  the  Silk  Lid  and  the  Striped 
Pants  were  not  necessities,  and  that  the  Prince  him- 
self did  not  favour  formal  dress  —  a  fact,  for  in- 
deed, he  preferred  himself  the  informality  of  a  grey 
lounge  suit  always,  when  not  wearing  uniform,  and 
did  not  even  trouble  to  change  for  dinner  unless  at- 
tending a  function.  The  paper  also  hinted  that  he 
had  eyes  for  other  things  in  partners  besides  silver 
slippers. 

These  papers  gave  us  an  indication  that  not  only 
would  "  Winnipeg  be  polished  to  the  heels  of  its 
shoes  "  at  the  coming  of  the  Prince,  but  to  continue 


i66    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

the  metaphor,  it  would  be  enthusiastic  to  well  above 
its  hat-band.     And  it  was. 


II 

Certainly  Winnipeg's  welcome  did  not  stop  at  the 
huge  mass  of  heels  —  high  as  well  as  low  —  that 
carried  it  out  to  look  at  the  Prince  on  his  arrival. 
It  mounted  well  up  to  the  heart  and  to  the  head  as  he 
left  the  wide-open  space  in  front  of  the  C.P.R.  sta- 
tion, and,  with  a  brave  escort  of  red-tuniced 
"  Mounties,"  swung  into  the  old  pioneer  trail  — 
only  it  is  called  Main  Street  now  —  toward  the 
Town  Hall. 

The  exceedingly  broad  street  was  lined  with  im- 
mense crowds,  that,  on  the  whole,  kept  their  ranks 
like  a  London  rather  than  a  Canadian  throng  for  at 
least  two  hundred  yards. 

Then  this  imported  docility  gave  way,  and  the 
press  of  people  became  entirely  Canadian.  The  es- 
sential spirit  of  the  Canadian,  hke  that  of  the  citizen 
of  another  country,  is  that  "  he  will  be  there.'* 
Or  perhaps  I  should  say  he  "  will  be  right  there." 
Anyhow,  there  he  was  as  close  to  the  Prince  as  he 
could  get  without  actually  climbing  into  the  carriage 
that  was  slowing  down  before  the  dais  among  trees 
in  the  garden  before  the  City  Hall. 

In  a  minute  where  there  had  been  a  broad  open 
space  lined  with  neat  policemen,  there  was  a  swamp- 
ing mass  of  Canadians  of  all  ages,  and  the  Prince 
was  entirely  hemmed  in.  In  fact  only  a  free  fight 
of  the  most  amiable  kind  got  him  out  of  the  carriage 


The  City  of  Wheat  167 

and  on  to  the  dais.  The  Marine  orderlies,  and 
others  of  the  suite,  joined  in  an  attempt  to  press  the 
throng  back.  They  could  accomplish  nothing  until 
the  "  Mounties  "  came  to  their  aid,  forced  a  pass- 
age with  their  horses,  and  so  permitted  the  Prince 
to  mount  the  dais  and  hear  the  Mayor  say  what  the 
crowd  had  been  explaining  for  the  past  ten  minutes, 
that  is,  how  glad  Winnipeg  was  to  see  him. 

It  was  the  usual  function,  but  varied  a  little. 
Winnipeg  has  not  always  been  happy  in  the  matter 
of  its  water  supply,  and  the  day  and  the  Prince  came 
together  to  inaugurate  a  new  era.  It  was  accomp- 
lished in  the  modern  manner.  The  Prince  pressed 
a  button  on  the  platform  and  water-gates  on  Shoal 
Lake  outside  the  city  swung  open.  In  a  minute  or 
two  a  dry  fountain  in  the  gardens  before  the  Prince 
threw  up  a  jet  of  water.  The  new  water  had  come 
to  Winnipeg. 

Through  big  crowds  on  the  sidewalks  he  passed 
through  an  avenue  of  fine,  tall  and  modern  stores, 
along  Broadway,  where  the  tram-tracks  fringed  with 
grass  and  trees  run  down  the  centre  of  a  wide  boule- 
vard that  is  edged  with  lawns  and  trees,  and  so  to 
the  new  Parliament  Buildings. 

Here  there  was  a  vivid  and  shining  scene  before 
the  great  white  curtain  of  a  classic  building  not  yet 
finished. 

In  the  wide  forecourt  was  a  mass  of  children  bear- 
ing flags,  and  up  the  great  flight  of  steps  leading  to 
the  impressive  Corinthian  porch  was  a  bank  of  peo- 
ple, jewelled  with  flags  and  vivid  in  gay  dresses. 
Against  the  sharp  white  mass  of  the  building  this 


i68    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

living,  thrilling  bed  of  humanity  made  an  unforget- 
table picture. 

The  ceremony  in  the  spacious  entrance  hall  was 
also  full  of  the  movement  and  colour  of  life.  In  the 
massive  square  hall  stairs  spring  upward  to  the  gal- 
lery on  which  the  Prince  stood.  On  the  level  of 
each  floor  galleries  were  cut  out  of  the  solid  stone 
of  the  walls.  Crowded  in  these  galleries  were  men 
and  women,  who  looked  down  the  shaft  of  this 
austere  chamber  upon  a  grouping  of  people  about 
the  foot  of  the  cold,  white  ascending  stairs.  The 
strong,  clear  light  added  to  the  dramatic  dignity  of 
the  scene. 

The  groups  moved  up  the  white  stairs  slowly  be- 
tween the  ranks  of  Highlanders,  whose  uniforms 
took  on  a  vividity  in  the  clarified  light.  The  Prince 
in  Guard's  uniform,  with  his  suite  in  blue  and  gold 
and  khaki  and  red  behind  him,  stood  on  the  big 
white  stage  of  the  stair-head  to  receive  them.  It 
was  a  scene  that  had  all  the  tone  and  all  the  circum- 
stances of  an  Eastern  levee. 

But  it  was  a  levee  with  a  fleck  of  humour,  also. 

As  he  turned  to  leave,  the  Prince  noticed  beside 
him  a  handsome  armchair  upholstered  in  royal  blue. 
It  was  a  strange,  lonely  chair  in  that  desert  of  gallery 
and  standing  humanity.  It  was  a  chair  that  needed 
explaining. 

In  characteristic  fashion  the  Prince  bent  down  to 
it  to  find  an  explanation.  The  crowd,  knowing  all 
about  that  chair  and  understanding  his  puzzlement, 
began  to  laugh.  It  laughed  outright  and  with  sym- 
pathetic humour  when,  abruptly  handing  his  Guards' 


The  City  of  Wheat  169 

cap  to  one  of  his  staff,  he  solemnly  sat  down  in  it  for 
a  second  instead  of  going  his  way. 

The  chair  was  the  chair  his  father  and  grandfather 
had  sat  in  when  they  came  to  Winnipeg.  Silver 
medallions  on  it  gave  testimony  to  facts.  The 
Prince  had  not  time  to  adopt  a  fully  considered  sit- 
ting, but  he  was  not  going  to  leave  the  building  until 
he,  too,  had  registered  his  claim  to  it. 

In  the  big  Campus  that  fronts  the  University  of 
Manitoba,  and  ranked  by  thousands  in  a  hollow 
square,  were  the  veterans  in  khaki  and  civies  who 
had  fought  as  comrades  of  the  Prince  in  the  war. 
To  these  he  went  next. 

It  was  a  lengthy  ceremony,  for  there  were  many 
to  inspect.  There  were  Canadian  Highlanders  and 
riflemen  in  the  square,  as  well  as  veterans  dating 
back  to  the  time  of  the  North-West  Rebellion  of  '85. 
And  there  was  also  the  regimental  goat  of  the  5th 
West  Canadians,  a  big,  husky  fellow,  who  endeav- 
oured to  take  control  of  the  ceremony  with  his  horns, 
as  befitted  a  veteran  who  sported  four  service  chev- 
rons and  a  wound  stripe. 

Here,  too,  the  crowd  was  the  most  stirring  and 
remarkable  feature  of  the  ceremony.  It  began  with 
an  almost  European  placidity  of  decorum,  standing 
quietly  behind  the  wooden  railing  on  three  sides  of 
the  Campus,  and  as  quietly  filling  the  seats  in  and 
about  the  glowingly  draped  grand  stand  before  the 
University  building.  As  the  ceremony  proceeded, 
however,  the  crowd  behind  the  stand  pressed  for- 
ward, getting  out  on  to  the  field.  Soldiers  linked 
arms  to  keep  it  back,  soldiers  with  bayonets  were 


lyo    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

drawn  from  the  ranks  of  veterans  to  give  additional 
weight,  wise  men  mounted  the  stand  and  strove  to 
stem  the  forward  pressure  with  logic.  But  that 
crowd  was  filled  with  much  the  same  spirit  that 
made  the  sea  so  difficult  a  thing  to  reason  with  in 
King  Canute's  day.  Neither  soldiers  nor  words  of 
the  wise  could  check  it.  It  flowed  forward  into  the 
Campus,  a  sea  of  men  and  women,  shop  girls  not 
caring  a  fig  if  they  were  "  late  back  "  and  had  a 
half-day  docked,  children  who  swarmed  amid  Olym- 
pian legs,  babies  in  mothers'  arms,  whose  presence 
in  that  crush  was  a  matter  of  real  terror  to  us  less 
hardened  British  —  an  impetuous  mass  of  young 
and  old,  masculine  and  feminine  life  that  cared  noth- 
ing for  hard  elbows  and  torn  clothes  as  long  as  it 
got  close  to  the  Prince. 

Before  the  inspection  was  finished,  before  the 
Prince  could  get  back  to  the  stand  to  present  medals, 
the  Campus  was  no  longer  a  hollow  square,  it  was 
a  packed  throng. 

And  the  crowd,  having  won  this  vantage,  took 
matters  into  its  own  hands  until,  indeed,  its  ardour 
began  to  verge  on  the  dangerous. 

As  the  Prince  left  the  field  the  great  crowd  swept 
after  him,  until  the  whole  mass  was  jammed  tight 
against  the  iron  railings  at  the  entrance  of  the  Cam- 
pus. The  Prince  was  in  the  heart  of  this  throng 
surrounded  by  police  who  strove  to  force  a  way  out 
for  him.  The  crowd  fought  as  heartily  to  get  at 
him.  There  was  a  wild  moment  when  the  throng 
charged  forward  and  crashed  the  iron  railings 
down  with  their  weight  and  force. 


The  City  of  Wheat  171 

There  were  cries  of  "Shoulder  him!  Shoulder 
the  boy!  "  and  a  rush  was  made  towards  him.  The 
police  had  a  hard  struggle  to  keep  the  people  back, 
and,  as  it  was,  it  was  only  the  swift  withdrawal  of  the 
Prince  from  the  scene  that  averted  trouble;  for  in  a 
crowd  that  had  got  slightly  out  of  hand  in  its  en- 
thusiasm, the  presence  of  so  many  children  and 
women  seemed  to  spell  calamity. 

This  splendid  ardour  is  more  remarkable,  since, 
only  a  few  months  before,  Winnipeg  had  been  the 
scene  of  an  outburst  which  its  citizens  describe  as 
nothing  else  but  Bolshevik. 

That  outcrop  of  active  discontent  —  which,  by  the 
way,  was  germinated  in  part  by  Englishmen  —  had  a 
loud  and  ugly  sound,  and  its  clamour  seemed 
ominous.  People  asked  whether  all  the  West,  and 
indeed,  all  Canada,  was  going  to  be  involved.  Was 
Canada  speaking  in  the  accents  of  revolt? 

Well,  on  September  9th,  there  arose  another  sound 
in  Winnipeg,  and  it  was  but  part  of  a  wave  of  sound 
that  had  been  travelling  westward  for  more  than 
a  month.  It  was,  I  think,  a  most  significant  sound. 
It  was  the  sound  of  majorities  expressing  them- 
selves. 

It  was  not  a  few  shouting  revolt.  It  was  the 
many  shouting  its  affection  and  loyalty  for  tried 
democratic  ideals. 

When  minorities  raise  their  voices  our  ears  are 
dinned  by  the  shouting  and  we  imagine  it  is  a  whole 
people  speaking.  We  forget  those  who  sit  silent  at 
home,  not  joining  in  the  storm.  The  silent  mass  of 
the  majority  is  overlooked  because  it  finds  so  few  op- 


172    Westzvard  witli  the  Frince  of  Wales 

portunities   for   self-expression.     Only  such   a  visit 
as  this  of  the  Prince  gives  them  a  chance. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  this  display  of  affection  had 
a  human  rather  than  a  political  significance.  It  Im- 
pressed me  not  as  an  affair  of  parties,  but  as  the 
fundamental,  human  desire  of  the  great  mass  of 
ordinary  workaday  people  to  show  their  appreciation 
for  stable  and  democratic  ideals  which  the  peculiarly 
democratic  individuality  of  the  Prince  represents. 


Ill 

Winnipeg  is  a  town  with  a  vital  spirit.  It  has  a 
large  air.  There  is  something  in  its  spaciousness 
that  tells  of  the  great  grain  plains  at  the  threshold 
of  which  it  stands.  It  is  the  "  Chicago  of  Canada," 
and  hub  of  a  world  of  grain,  Queen  City  in  the  King- 
dom of  Bakers'  Flour.  And  it  is  mightily  conscious 
of  its  high  office. 

It  springs  upward  out  of  the  flat  and  brooding 
prairies,  where  the  Assiniboine  and  the  strong  Red 
River  strike  together  —  the  old  "Forks"  of  the 
pioneer  days.  It  sits  where  the  old  trails  of  the 
pathfinder  and  the  fur  trader  join,  and  its  very  streets 
grew  up  about  those  trails. 

From  the  piles  of  pelts  dumped  by  Indians  and 
hunters  outside  the  old  Hudson  Bay  stockade  at 
Fort  Garry,  and  the  sacks  of  raw  grain  that  the  old 
prairie  schooners  brought  In,  Winnipeg  of  today 
has  grown  up. 

And  It  has  grown  up  with  the  astonishing,  swift 
maturity  of  the  West.     Fifty  years  ago  there  was 


The  City  of  Wheat  173 

not  even  a  village.  Forty  years  ago  it  was  a  mere 
spot  on  the  world  map,  put  there  only  to  indicate  the 
locality  of  Louis  Kiel's  Red  River  Rebellion,  and 
Wolseley's  march  to  Fort  Garry,  as  its  name  was. 
In  1 88 1  it  became  just  Winnipeg,  a  townlet  with  less 
than  8,000  souls  in  it.  Today  it  ranks  with  the 
greatest  commercial  cities  in  Canada,  and  its  great- 
ness can  be  felt  in  the  tingling  energy  of  its  streets. 

The  wonder  of  that  swift  growth  is  a  thing  that 
can  be  brought  directly  home.  I  stood  on  the  sta- 
tion with  a  man  old  but  still  active,  and  he  said  to  me  : 

"  Do  you  see  that  block  of  buildings  over  there? 
I  had  the  piece  of  ground  on  which  it  was  built.  I 
sold  it  for  a  hundred  dollars,  it  was  prairie  then. 
It's  worth  many  thousands  now.  And  that  piece 
where  that  big  factory  stands,  that  was  mine.  I  let 
that  go  for  under  three  hundred,  and  the  present 
owners  bought  in  the  end  for  twenty  and  more  times 
that  sum.  Oh,  we  were  all  foolish  then,  how  could 
we  tell  that  Winnipeg  was  going  to  grow?  It  was  a 
'  back-block  '  town,  shacks  along  a  dusty  track.  And 
the  railway  hadn't  come.  A  three-story  wooden 
house,  that  was  a  marvel  to  be  sure;  now  we  have 
skyscrapers." 

And  fast  though  W^innipeg  has  grown,  or  because 
she  has  grown  at  such  a  pace,  one  can  still  see  the 
traces  and  feel  the  spirit  of  the  old  spacious  days  in 
her  streets.  They  are  long  streets  and  so  planned 
that  they  seem  to  have  been  built  by  men  who  knew 
that  there  were  no  limits  on  the  immense  plains,  and 
so  broad  that  one  knows  that  the  designers  had  been 
conscious  that  there  was  no  need  to  pinch  the  side- 


174    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

walks  and  carriage-ways  with  all  the  prairie  at  the 
back  of  them. 

Along  these  sumptuous  avenues  there  still  remain 
many  of  the  low-built  and  casual  houses  that  men  put 
up  in  the  early  days,  and  it  is  these  standing  beside 
the  modernity  of  the  business  buildings,  soaring 
sky-high,  the  massive  grain  elevators  and  the  big 
brisk  mills  that  give  the  city  its  curious  blending 
of  pioneer  days  and  thrusting,  twentieth-century 
virility. 

It  is  a  town  like  no  other  that  we  had  visited,  and 
where  one  had  the  feeling  that  up-to-date  card-in- 
dexing systems  were  being  worked  by  men  in  the 
woolly  riding  chaps  of  old  plainsmen. 

In  the  people  of  the  streets  one  experienced  the 
same  curious  sense  of  "  difference."  In  splendid 
boulevards  such  as  Main,  and  Portage,  which  turns 
from  it,  there  are  stores  worthy  of  New  York  and 
London  in  size,  smartness  and  glowing  attraction. 
And  the  women  crowds  that  make  these  streets  busy 
are  as  crisply  dressed  in  modern  fashions  as  any  on 
the  Continent,  but  there  is  a  definite  individuality  in 
the  air  of  the  men. 

Canadian  men  dress  with  a  conspicuous  indiffer- 
ence. They  wear  anything  from  overalls  and  broad- 
banded  sweaters  to  lounge  suits  that  ever  seem  ill- 
fitting.  In  Winnipeg  there  is  the  same  disregard 
for  personal  appearance  plus  a  hat  with  a  higher 
crown.  As  we  went  West  the  crown  of  the  soft  hat 
climbed  higher,  and  the  brim  became  both  wider  and 
more  curly. 

There  is,  too,  on  the  sidewalks  of  Winnipeg  the 


The  City  of  Wheat  175 

conglomeration  of  races  that  go  to  feed  the  West. 
The  city  is  the  great  emigrant  centre  that  serves  the 
farmers,  the  fruit-growers  of  the  Rockies,  the 
ranchmen  in  the  foothills,  and  even  the  industries  on 
the  Pacific  Slopes.  Everywhere  outside  agencies 
there  are  great  blackboards  on  which  demands  for 
farm  labourers  at  five  dollars  a  day  and  other 
workers  are  chalked. 

To  these  agencies  flow  strange  men  in  blouse- 
shirts,  wearing  strange  caps  —  generally  of  fur  — 
carrying  strange-looking  suit-cases  and  speaking  the 
strange  tongues  of  far  European  or  Asiatic  lands. 
Chinese  and  Japanese  (whom  the  Canadian  lumps 
under  the  general  term  "Orientals"),  negroes,  a 
few  Indians,  and  a  hotch-potch  of  races  walk  the 
streets  of  Winnipeg,  and  Winnipeg  deals  with  them, 
houses  them,  gives  them  advice,  and  distributes  them 
over  the  wide  lands  of  Canada,  where  they  will  work 
and  working  will  gradually  fuse  into  the  racial  whole 
that  is  the  Canadian  race. 

In  the  hotels,  too,  one  notices  that  a  change  is 
taking  place.  The  "  Oriental  " —  the  Japanese  in 
this  case  —  takes  the  place  of  the  Canadian  bell-boy 
and  porter,  and  he  takes  this  place  more  and  more 
as  one  goes  West.  There  are,  of  course,  always 
Chinese  "  Chop  Suey  and  Noodles'  Restaurants,"  as 
well  as  Chinese  laundries  in  Canadian  towns;  we 
met  them  as  early  as  St.  John's,  Newfoundland; 
but  from  Winnipeg  to  the  Pacific  Coast  these  estab- 
lishments grow  in  numbers,  until  in  Vancouver  and 
Victoria  there  are  big  "  Oriental  "  quarters  —  cities 
within  the  cities  that  harbour  them. 


176    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

The  "  Orientals  "  make  good  citizens,  the  Chinese 
particularly.  They  are  industrious,  clever  workers, 
especially  as  agriculturists,  and  they  give  no  trouble. 
The  great  drawback  with  them  is  that  they  do  not 
stay  in  the  country,  but  having  made  their  money  in 
Canada,  go  home  to  China  to  spend  it. 

Most  of  the  alien  element  that  goes  to  Canada  is 
of  good  quality,  and  ultimately  becomes  a  very 
valuable  asset.  But  the  problem  Canada  is  facing 
is  that  they  are  strangers,  and,  not  having  been 
brought  up  in  the  British  tradition,  they  know  noth- 
ing of  it.  The  tendency  of  this  influence  is  to  pro- 
duce a  new  race  to  Vv^hich  the  ties  of  sentiment  and 
blood  have  little  meaning. 

It  is  a  problem  which  Britain  must  share  also,  if 
we  do  not  wish  to  see  Canada  growing  up  a  stranger 
to  us  in  texture,  ideals  and  thought.  It  is  not  an 
easy  problem.  Canada's  chief  need  today  is  for 
agriculturists,  yet  the  workers  we  wish  to  retain 
most  in  this  country  are  agriculturists.  Canada 
must  have  her  supply,  and  if  we  cannot  afford  them, 
she  must  take  what  she  can  from  Eastern  Europe,  or 
from  America,  and  very  many  American  farmers, 
indeed,  are  moving  up  to  Canadian  lands. 

There  is  always  room  in  a  vast  country  such  as 
Canada  for  skilled  or  willing  workers,  and  we  can 
send  them.  But  the  demand  is  not  great  at  present, 
and  will  not  be  great  until  the  agriculturist  opens 
up  the  land.  And  the  agriculturist  is  to  come  from 
where? 

Certainly  it  is  a  matter  which  calls  for  a  great 
deal  of  consideration. 


The  City  of  Wheat  177 

IV 

The  Prince  made  the  usual  round  of  the  usual 
program  during  his  stay,  but  his  visit  to  the  Grain 
Exchange  was  an  item  that  was  unique. 

He  drove  on  Wednesday,  September  loth,  to 
this  dramatic  place,  where  brokers,  apparently  in 
a  frenzy,  shout  and  wave  their  hands,  while  the 
price  of  grain  sinks  and  rises  like  a  trembling 
balance  at  their  gestures  and  shouts. 

The  pit  at  which  all  these  hustling  buyers  and 
sellers  are  gathered  has  all  the  romantic  qualities 
of  fiction.  It  is,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  one  of 
the  few  places  that  live  up  to  the  written  pictures 
of  it,  for  it  gave  me  the  authentic  thrill  that  had 
come  to  me  when  I  first  read  of  the  Chicago  wheat 
transactions  in  Frank  Norris's  novel,  "  The  Pit." 

The  Prince  drove  to  the  Grain  Exchange  and  was 
whirled  aloft  to  the  fourth  story  of  the  tall  build- 
ing. He  entered  a  big  hall  In  which  babel  with 
modern  Improvements  and  complications  reigned. 

In  the  centre  of  this  rjoom  was  the  pit  proper. 
It  has  nothing  of  the  Stygian  about  it.  It  is  a 
hexagon  of  shallow  steps  rising  from  the  floor,  and 
descending  on  the  Inner  side. 

On  these  steps  was  a  crowd  of  super-men  with 
voices  of  rolled  steel.  They  called  out  cabahstic 
formulae  of  which  the  most  intelligible  to  the  lay- 
man sounded  something  like: 

"  May  —  eighty-three  —  quarter." 

Cold,  high  and  terrible  voices  seemed  to  answer: 

"  Taken." 


178    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

Hundreds  of  voices  were  doing  this,  amid  a  storm 
of  cross  shoutings,  and  under  a  cloud  of  tossing 
hands,  that  signalled  with  fingers  or  with  papers. 
Cutting  across  this  whirlpool  of  noise  was  the  frantic 
clicking  of  telegraph  instruments.  These  tickers 
were  worked  by  four  emotionless  gods  sitting  high 
up  in  a  judgment  seat  over  the  pit. 

They  had  unerring  ears.  They  caught  the  sepa- 
rate quotations  from  the  seething  maelstrom  of 
sound  beneath  them,  sifted  the  completed  deal  from 
the  mere  speculative  offer  in  uncanny  fashion,  and 
with  their  unresting  fingers  ticked  the  message  off  on 
an  instrument  that  carried  it  to  a  platform  high  up 
on  one  of  the  walls. 

On  this  platform  men  in  shirt-sleeves  prowled 
backwards  and  forwards  —  as  the  tigers  do  about 
feeding  time  in  the  Zoo.  They,  too,  had  super-hear- 
ing. From  little  funnels  that  looked  like  electric 
light  shades  they  caught  the  tick  of  the  messages,  and 
chalked  the  figures  of  the  latest  prices  as  they  altered 
with  the  dealing  on  the  floor  upon  a  huge  blackboard 
that  made  the  wall  behind  them. 

At  the  same  time  the  gods  on  the  rostrum  were 
tapping  messages  to  the  four  corners  of  the  world. 
Even  Chicago  and  Mark  Lane  altered  their  prices 
as  the  finger  of  one  of  these  calm  men  worked  his 
clicker. 

When  the  Prince  entered  the  room  the  gong 
sounded  to  close  the  market,  and  amid  a  hearty 
volume  of  cheering  he  was  introduced  to  the  pit,  and 
some  of  its  intricacies  were  explained  to  him.  The 
gong  sounded  again,  the  market  opened,  and  a  storm 


The  City  of  Wheat  179 

of  shouting  broke  over  him,  men  making  and  ac- 
cepting deals  over  his  head. 

Intrigued  by  the  excitement,  he  agreed  with  the 
broker  who  had  brought  him  in,  to  accept  the  ex- 
perience of  making  a  flutter  in  grain. 

Immediately  there  were  yells,  "  What  is  he,  Bull 
or  Bear?  "  and  the  Prince,  thoroughly  perplexed, 
turned  to  the  broker  and  asked  what  type  of  finan- 
cial mammal  he  might  be. 

He  became  a  Bull  and  bought. 

He  did  not  endeavour  to  corner  wheat  in  the 
manner  of  the  heroes  of  the  stories,  for  wheat  was 
controlled;  he  bought,  instead,  fifty  thousand  bushels 
of  oats.  A  fair  deal,  and  he  told  those  about  him 
with  a  smile  that  he  was  going  to  make  several 
thousand  dollars  out  of  Winnipeg  in  a  very  few 
moments. 

An  onlooker  pointed  to  the  blackboard,  and 
cried : 

"  What  about  that?     Oats  are  falling." 

But  the  broker  was  a  wise  man.  He  had  avoided 
a  royal  "  crash."  He  had  already  sold  at  the  same 
price,  83  J^,  and  the  Prince  had  accomplished  what 
is  called  a  "  cross  trade."  That  is  he  had  squared 
the  deal  and  only  lost  his  commission. 

While  he  stood  in  that  frantic  pit  of  whirling 
voices  something  of  the  vast  transactions  of  the 
Grain  Exchange  was  explained  to  him.  It  is  the 
biggest  centre  for  the  receipt  and  sale  of  wheat  di- 
rectly off  the  land  in  the  world.  It  handles  grain 
by  the  million  bushels.  In  the  course  of  a  day,  so 
swift  and  thorough  are  its  transactions,  it  can  manip- 


i8o    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

ulate  deals  aggregating  anything  up  to  150,000,000 
bushels. 

When  these  details  had  been  put  before  him,  the 
gong  was  again  struck,  and  silence  came  magically. 

Unseen  by  most  in  that  pack  of  men  on  the  steps 
the  Prince  was  heard  to  say  that  he  had  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  to  master  the  intricacies  of  the  Ex- 
change was  a  science  rather  beyond  his  grasp  just 
then.  He  hoped  that  his  trip  westward  would  give 
him  a  more  intimate  knowledge  of  the  facts  about 
grain,  and  when  he  came  back,  as  he  hoped  he 
would,  he  might  have  it  in  him  to  do  something  bet- 
ter than  a  "  cross  trade." 

From  the  pit  the  lift  took  him  aloft  again  to  the 
big  sampling  and  classifying  room  on  the  tenth  floor 
of  the  building.  The  long  tables  of  this  room  were 
littered  with  small  bags  of  grain,  and  with  grain  in 
piles  undergoing  tests.  The  floor  was  strewn  with 
spilled  wheat  and  oats  and  corn.  Here  he  was 
shown  how  grain,  carried  to  Winnipeg  in  the  long 
trucks,  was  sampled  and  brought  to  this  room  in 
bags.  Here  it  was  classified  by  experts,  who,  by 
touch,  taste  and  smell,  could  gauge  its  quality  un- 
erringly. 

It  is  the  perfection  of  a  system  for  handling  grain 
in  the  raw  mass.  The  buyer  never  sees  the  grain 
he  purchases.  The  classification  of  the  Exchange  is 
so  reliable  that  he  accepts  its  certificates  of  quality 
and  weight  and  buys  on  paper  alone. 

Nor  are  the  dealers  ever  delayed  by  this  wonder- 
fully working  organization.  The  Exchange  has 
samplers  down  on  the  trucks  at  the  railway  sidings 


The  City  of  Wheat  181 

day  and  night.  During  the  whole  twenty-four 
hours  of  the  day  there  are  men  digging  specially 
constructed  scoops  that  take  samples  from  every 
level  of  the  car-loads  of  grain,  putting  the  grain  Into 
the  small  bags,  and  sending  them  along  to  the  classi- 
fication department. 

So  swiftly  is  the  work  done  that  the  train  can 
pull  Into  the  Immense  range  of  special  yards,  such  as 
those  the  C.P.R.  have  constructed  for  the  accom- 
modation of  grain,  change  Its  engine  and  crew,  and 
by  the  time  the  change  is  effected,  samples  of  all  the 
trucks  have  been  taken,  and  the  train  can  go  on  to 
the  great  elevators  and  mills  at  Fort  William  and 
Port  Arthur. 

This  rapid  handling  in  no  way  affects  the  efficiency 
of  the  Exchange.  Its  decisions  are  so  sure  that  the 
grading  of  the  wheat  is  only  disputed  about  forty 
times  in  the  year.  This  Is  astonishing  when  one 
realizes  the  enormous  number  of  samples  judged. 

In  the  same  way,  and  in  spite  of  the  apparent  con- 
fusion about  the  pit  where  they  take  place,  the 
records  of  the  transactions  are  so  exact  that  only 
about  once  In  five  thousand  is  such  a  record  queried. 

The  Prince  was  immensely  interested  In  all  the 
practical  details  of  working  which  make  this  hand- 
ling of  grain  a  living  and  dramatic  thing,  showing,  as 
usual,  that  active  curiosity  for  workaday  facts  that 
is  essential  to  the  make-up  of  the  moderns. 

His  directness  and  accessibility  made  friends  for 
him  with  these  hard-headed  business  men  as  readily 
as  it  had  made  friends  with  soldiers  and  with  the 
mass  of  people.     Winnipeg  had  already  exerted  its 


i82    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

Western  faculty  for  affectionate  epithets.  He  had 
already  been  dubbed  a  "  Fine  Kiddo,"  and  it  was 
commonplace  to  hear  people  say  of  him,  "  He's  a 
regular  feller,  he'll  do."  They  said  these  things 
again  in  the  Exchange,  declaring  emphatically  he  was 
"  sure,  a  manly-looking  chap." 

As  he  left  the  Exchange  the  members  switched  the 
chaos  of  the  pit  into  shouts  of  a  more  hearty  and 
powerful  volume,  and  to  listen  to  a  crowd  of  such 
fully-seasoned  lungs  doing  their  utmost  in  the  con- 
fined space  of  a  building  is  an  awe-inspiring  and  ter- 
rific experience. 

The  friendliness  here  was  but  a  "  classified 
sample  " —  if  the  Winnipeg  Exchange  will  permit 
that  expression  —  of  the  friendliness  in  bulk  he 
found  all  over  Canada,  and  which  he  found  in  the 
great  West,  upon  which  he  was  now  entering. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   FRINGE    OF    THE    GREAT    NORTHWEST 
SASKATOON    AND    EDMONTON 


FROM  Winnipeg,  on  the  night  of  September 
loth,  we  pushed  steadily  northwest,  and  on 
the  morning  of  Thursday,  the  nth,  we  were 
in  the  open  prairie,  a  new  land  that  is  being  opened 
up  by  the  settler. 

We  were  travelling  too  late  to  see  the  land  under 
wheat  —  one  of  the  finest  sights  in  the  world,  we 
were  told;  but  all  the  grain  was  not  in,  and  we  saw 
threshing  operations  in  progress  and  big  areas 
covered  with  the  strangely  small  stooks,  the  result  of 
the  Canadian  system  of  cutting  the  standing  stalk 
rather  high  up.  In  the  early  night,  by  Portage  la 
Prairie,  we  had  seen  big  fires  burning  in  the  distance. 
They  were  not,  as  we  at  first  thought,  prairie  fires, 
but  the  homesteader  getting  rid  of  the  great  mounds 
of  stalk  left  by  the  threshing,  the  usual  method. 

In  the  early  morning  mist  we  came  upon  the  big, 
flat  expanse  of  Horn  Lake,  near  Wynyard,  over 
which  flew  lines  of  militaristic  duck  in  wedge  forma- 
tion. The  prairies  lay  about  us  in  a  great  expanse, 
dun-brown  and  rolling.  It  is  a  monotonous  land- 
scape, and  there  were  few  if  any  trees  until  we  got 
farther  north  and  west. 

:83 


184    Westward  zvith  the  Prince  of  Wales 

The  little  prairie  towns  appear  on  the  horizon  a 
great  distance  away,  thanks  to  the  big  grain  elevators 
alongside  the  track.  The  grain  elevators  in  these 
plains  are  what  churches  are  in  Europe;  they  have, 
indeed,  the  look  of  being  basilicas  of  a  new, 
materialistic  dispensation. 

The  little  towns  under  the  elevators  seem  pal- 
pably to  be  struggling  with  the  inert  force  of  the 
prairie  about  them.  Prairie  seems  to  be  flowing 
into  them  on  every  side,  and  only  by  a  brave  effort 
do  houses  and  streets  raise  themselves  above  the  en- 
croaching sea  of  grass.  Yet  all  the  towns  have  a 
modern  air,  too.  All  have  excellent  electric  light 
services  in  houses  and  streets,  and  all  have  "  movie  " 
theatres. 

At  the  stations  crowds  were  gathered.  At  Wyn- 
yard  all  the  young  of  the  district  appeared  to  have 
collected  before  going  to  school.  Catching  the 
word  that  the  Prince  "  lived  "  in  the  last  car,  they 
swarmed  round  it.  Some  one  told  them  the  Prince 
was  still  in  bed,  and  with  the  utmost  cheerfulness 
they  began  to  chant :  "  Sleepy  head  !     Sleepy  head  !  " 

At  Lanigan,  the  next  station,  a  crowd  of  the  same 
cheery  temper  also  raised  a  clamour  for  the  Prince. 
As  a  rule  he  never  disappointed  them,  and  would 
leave  whatever  he  was  doing  to  go  on  to  the  obser- 
vation platform  at  the  first  hint  of  cheers.  But 
at  Lanigan  there  were  difficulties.  The  crowd 
cheered.  Some  one  looked  out  of  the  car,  made  a 
gesture  of  negation,  and  went  back.  The  crowd 
cheered  a  good  deal  more.  There  was  a  pause; 
more   cheering.     Then   a    discreet   member   of   the 


The  ¥ringe  of  the  Great  Northwest    185 

Staff  came  out  and  said  the  Prince  was  awfully  sorry, 
but  —  but,  well,  he  was  in  his  bath ! 

"  That's  all  the  better,"  called  a  cheerful  girl 
from  the  heart  of  the  crowd.     "  We  don't  mind." 

The  member  of  the  Staff  vanished  in  a  new  gust  of 
cheering,  probably  to  hide  his  blushes.  Need  I  say 
the  Prince  did  not  appear? 

At  Colonsay  there  was  a  stop  of  five  minutes  only, 
but  the  people  of  the  town  made  the  most  of  it. 
They  had  a  pretty  Britannia  to  the  fore,  and  all  the 
school-children  grouped  about  her  and  singing  when 
the  train  steamed  in.  And  when  it  stopped,  a  de- 
lightful and  tiny  miss  came  forward  and  gave  the 
Prince  a  bunch  of  sweet  peas. 

These  incidents  were  a  few  only  of  a  characteristic 
day's  run.  Every  day  the  same  sort  of  thing  hap- 
pened, so  that  though  the  Prince  had  a  more  strenu- 
ous time  in  the  bigger  cities,  his  "  free  times  "  were 
actually  made  up  of  series  of  smaller  functions  in  the 
smaller  ones. 

II 

Saskatoon,  the  distributing  city  for  the  middle  of 
Saskatchewan,  was  to  give  the  Prince  a  memorable 
day.  It  was  here  that  he  obtained  his  first  insight 
into  the  life  and  excitements  of  the  cowboy.  Saska- 
toon, in  addition  to  the  usual  reception  functions, 
showed  him  a  "  Stampede,"  which  is  a  cowboy 
sports  meeting. 

The  Prince  arrived  in  the  town  at  noon,  and 
drove  through  the  streets  to  the  Park  and  University 
grounds  for  the  reception  ceremonies.     It  is  a  keen. 


i86    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

bright  place,  seeming,  indeed,  of  sparkling  newness 
in  the  wonderful  clarified  sunlight  of  the  prairie. 

It  is  new.  Saskatoon  is  only  now  beginning  its 
own  history.  It  is  still  sorting  itself  out  from  the 
plain  which  its  elevators,  business  blocks  and  de- 
lightful residential  districts  are  yet  occupied  in 
thrusting  back.  It  is  a  characteristic  town  on  the 
uplift.  It  snubs  and  encroaches  upon  the  illimitable 
fields  with  its  fine  American  architecture,  and  its 
stone  university  buildings.  It  has  new  suburbs  full 
of  houses  of  symmetrical  Western  comeliness  in  a 
tract  wearing  the  air  of  Buffalo  Bill. 

It  grows  so  fast  that  you  can  almost  see  it  doing 
It.  It  has  grown  so  fast  that  it  has  outstripped  the 
guide-book  makers.  They  talk  of  it  In  two  lines  as 
a  village  of  a  few  hundred  inhabitants,  but  put  not 
your  trust  in  guide-books  when  coming  to  Canada, 
for  the  village  you  come  out  to  see  turns  out,  like 
Saskatoon,  to  be  a  busthng  city  full  of  "  pep,"  as 
they  say,  and  possessing  20,000  inhabitants. 

The  guide-book  makers  are  not  to  blame.  Some- 
where about  1903  there  were  no  more  than  150 
people  within  its  boundaries.  Now,  from  the  look 
of  it,  it  could  provide  ten  motor-cars  for  each  of 
these  oldest  inhabitants,  and  have  about  500  over 
for  new-comers  —  in  fact,  that  is  about  the  figure; 
there  are  2,000  cars  on  the  Saskatoon  registers. 
Saskatoon  was  full  of  cars  neatly  lined  up  along  the 
Prince's  route  during  every  period  of  his  stay. 

The  great  function  of  the  visit  was  the  "  Stam- 
pede." This  sports  meeting  took  place  on  a  big 
facing  ground  before  a  grand-stand  that  held  many 


The  Fringe  of  the  Great  Northwest    187 

thousand  more  people  than  Saskatoon  boasted.  The 
many  cars  that  brought  them  in  from  all  over  the 
country  were  parked  in  huge  wedges  in  and  about 
the  ground. 

Passing  off  the  wild  dirt  roads,  the  Prince  headed 
a  procession  of  cars  round  the  course  before  en- 
tering a  special  pavilion  erected  facing  the  grand- 
stand. His  coming  was  the  signal  for  the  Stam- 
pede to  commence.  It  was  a  new  thrill  to  Britishers, 
an  affair  of  excitement,  and  a  real  breath  of  West- 
ern life.  They  told  us  that  the  cattle  kings  are  mov- 
ing away  from  this  area  to  the  more  spacious  and 
lonely  lands  of  the  North;  but  the  exhibition  the 
Prince  witnessed  showed  that  the  daring  and  skilful 
spirit  of  the  cowboys  has  not  moved  on  yet. 

We  were  also  told  that  this  Stampede  was  some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  a  circus  that  toured  the  coun- 
try, and  that  men  and  animals  played  their  parts 
mechanically  as  oft-tried  turns  in  a  show.  But  even 
if  that  was  so,  the  thing  was  unique  to  British  eyes, 
and  the  exhibition  of  all  the  tricks  of  the  cattleman's 
calling  was  for  those  who  looked  on  a  new  sensation. 

Cattlemen  rode  before  the  Prince  on  bucking 
horses  that,  loosed  from  wooden  cages,  came  along 
the  track  like  things  compact  of  India-rubber  and 
violence,  as  they  strove  to  throw  the  leechlike  men 
in  furry,  riding  chaps,  loose  shirts,  sweat-rags  and 
high  felt  hats,  who  rode  them. 

Some  of  the  men  rode  what  seemed  a  more  difficult 
proposition  —  an  angry  bull,  that  bunched  itself  up 
■and  down  and  lowed  vindictively,  as  it  tried  to  buck 
its  rider  off. 


i88    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

From  the  end  of  the  race-track  a  steer  was  loosed, 
and  a  cowboy  on  a  small  lithe  broncho  rode  after 
it  at  top  speed.  Round  the  head  of  this  man  the 
lariat  whirled  like  a  live  snake.  In  a  flash  the  noose 
was  tight  about  the  steer's  horns,  the  brilliant  little 
horse  had  overtaken  the  beast,  and  in  an  action  when 
man  and  horse  seemed  to  combine  as  one,  the  tight- 
ened rope  was  swung  against  the  steer's  legs.  It  was 
thrown  heavily.  Like  lightning  the  cowboy  was  off 
the  horse,  was  on  top  of  the  half-stunned  steer,  and 
had  its  legs  hobbled  in  a  rope. 

One  man  of  the  many  who  competed  in  this  trial 
of  skill  performed  the  whole  operation  in  twenty- 
eight  seconds  from  the  time  the  steer  was  loosed 
to  the  time  its  legs  were  secured. 

A  more  daring  feat  is  "  bull-dogging." 

The  steer  is  loosed  as  before,  and  the  cattleman 
rides  after  it,  but  instead  of  lassoing  it,  he  leaps 
straight  out  of  his  saddle  and  plunges  on  to  the  horns 
of  the  beast.  Gripping  these  long  and  cruel-looking 
weapons,  he  twists  the  bull's  neck  until  the  animal 
comes  down,  and  there,  with  his  body  in  the  hollow 
of  the  neck  and  shoulder,  he  holds  it  until  his  com- 
panions run  up  and  release  him. 

There  is  a  real  thrill  of  danger  in  this. 

One  man,  a  cowboy  millionaire,  caught  his  steer 
well,  but  in  the  crash  in  which  the  animal  came  down 
it  rolled  right  over  him.  For  a  moment  man  and 
beast  were  lost  in  a  confusion  of  tossing  legs  and 
dust.  Then  the  man,  with  shirt  torn  to  ribbons 
and  his  back  scraped  in  an  ugly  manner,  rose  up 
gamely  and  limped   away.     The   only   thing  about 


The  Fringe  of  the  Great  Northwest    189 

him  that  had  escaped  universal  dusting  was  his  white 
double-Hnen  collar,  the  strangest  article  of  clothing 
any  "  bull-dogger  "  might  wear. 

The  Prince  called  this  plucky  fellow,  as  well  as 
others  of  the  outfit,  into  the  pavilion,  and  talked 
with  them  some  time  on  the  risk  and  adventures  of 
their  business,  as  well  as  congratulating  them  on 
their  skill. 

Two  comely  cowgirls,  in  fringed  leather  dresses, 
high  boots,  bright  blouses  and  broad  sombreros,  also 
caught  his  eye.  He  spoke  to  a  "  movie  "  man,  who 
had  already  added  to  the  gaiety  of  nations  by  leap- 
ing round  in  a  circle  (heavy  camera  and  all)  while 
a  big,  bucking  broncho  had  leaped  round  after  him, 
telling  him  that  the  girls  formed  a  lit  subject  for  the 
lens. 

"  I'm  waiting  until  I  can  get  you  with  them,  sir," 
said  the  "  movie  "  man. 

"  Oh,  you'll  get  me  all  right,"  the  Prince  laughed. 
"  There's  no  chance  of  my  escaping  you." 

The  "  movie  "  man  got  Prince  and  cowgirls  pres- 
ently, when  the  Prince  had  invited  them  into  the 
pavilion  to  chat  for  a  few  minutes.  They  were  fine, 
free  and  independent  girls,  who  enjoyed  the  natural- 
ness and  easiness  of  the  interview. 

During  the  meeting  all  the  arts  of  the  cowboys 
were  exhibited.  The  lariat  expert  lassoed  men  and 
horses  in  bunches  of  five  as  easily  as  he  lassoed  one, 
and  danced  in  and  turned  somersaults  through  his 
ever-whirling  loop.  There  were  some  fine  exhibi- 
tions of  horse-riding,  and  there  was  some  Amazonian 
racing  by  girls  in  jockey  garb. 


IQO    Westward  with  the  Frii2ce  of  Wales 

The  human  interlude  was  also  there.  A  daring 
woman  photographer  in  the  grand-stand  held  up  a 
cowboy.  Disregarding  her  long  skirts,  she  climbed 
the  fence  of  the  course  and  calmly  mounted  behind 
the  horseman.  Riding  thus,  she  passed  across  the 
front  of  the  cheering  grand-stand  and  came  to  the 
steps  of  the  Prince's  pavilion.  Unconcerned  by  the 
joy  of  the  great  crowd,  she  asked  permission  to  take 
a  snapshot,  and  received  it,  going  her  way  unruffled 
and  entirely  Canadian. 

The  very  thrilling  afternoon  was  closed  by  the 
Prince  himself.  Walking  over  to  the  crowd  of 
cattlemen,  he  stood  talking  with  them  and  examining 
their  horses.  Presently,  on  the  invitation  of  the 
leader,  he  mounted  a  broncho,  and,  leading  the 
bunch  of  cowboys  and  cowgirls,  swept  down  the  track 
and  past  the  stand.  The  people,  dehghted  at  this 
•unexpected  act,  vented  themselves  in  the  usual  way 
—  that  is,  with  extraordinary  enthusiasm. 


Ill 


Edmonton,  the  capital  of  Alberta,  was  the  Prince's 
farthest  north.  He  arrived  there  on  Friday,  Sep- 
tember 1 2th,  to  receive  the  unstinted  welcome  which, 
long  since,  we  had  come  to  know  was  Canada's  na- 
tural attitude  towards  him.  As  we  crossed  the 
broad  main  street  to  the  station,  the  sight  of  the  vast 
human  flower-bed  that  filled  the  road  below  the 
railway  bridge  made  one  tingle  at  the  thoroughness 
with  which  these  towns  gathered  to  express  them- 
selves. 


The  Fringe  of  the  Great  Nortliwest    191 

Canada,  as  I  may  have  hinted  already,  has  a  way 
of  leading  strangers  astray  concerning  herself.  In 
Eastern  Canada  we  were  told  that  we  would  find  the 
West  "  different."  From  what  was  said  to  us,  there 
was  some  reason  for  expecting  to  find  an  entirely 
new  race  on  the  Pacific  side  of  Winnipeg.  It  would 
be  a  race  further  removed  from  the  British  tradi- 
tion, a  race  not  so  easy  to  get  on  with,  a  race  not 
moved  by  the  impulses  and  enthusiasms  that  stirred 
the  East. 

And  in  the  West?  Well,  all  I  can  say  is  that  quite 
a  number  of  Western  men  shook  me  by  the  hand  and 
told  me  how  thankful  I  must  be  now  that  I  had  left 
the  cold  and  rigid  East  for  the  more  generous 
warmth  of  the  spacious  West.  And  hadn't  I  found 
the  East  a  strange  place,  inhabited  by  people  not 
easy  to  get  on  with,  and  removed  from  the  British 
tradition  —  and  so  on   .   .   .    ? 

This  singular  state  of  things  may  seem  queer  to 
the  Briton,  but  I  think  it  is  easily  explainable.  In 
the  first  place,  Canada  is  so  vast  that  her  people, 
even  though  they  be  on  the  same  continent,  are  as 
removed  from  immediate  intimacy  as  the  Kentish 
man  is  from  the  man  in  a  Russian  province.  And 
not  only  does  great  distance  make  for  lack  of  knowl- 
edge, but  the  fact  that  each  province  is  self-con- 
tained and  feeds  upon  itself,  so  to  speak,  in  the  mat- 
ter of  news  and  so  on,  makes  the  citizen  in  Ontario, 
or  Quebec,  or  New  Brunswick,  regard  the  people 
of  the  West  as  living  in  a  distant  and  strange  land. 

The  Canadian,  too,  is  intensely  loyal  to  Canada; 
that  means  he  is  intensely  jealous  for  her  reputation. 


192    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

He  warned  us  against  all  possibilities,  I  think,  so  that 
we  should  be  ready  for  any  disappointment. 

There  was  not  the  slightest  need  for  warning. 
Whether  East  or  West,  Canada  was  solid  in  Its 
welcome,  and,  as  far  as  I  am  able  to  judge,  there  is 
no  difference  at  all  in  the  texture  of  human  habit  and 
mind  East  or  West.  There  is  the  same  fine,  sturdy 
quality  of  loyalty  and  hospitality  over  the  whole 
Dominion.      Canada  Is  Canada  all  through. 

Edmonton  is  a  fine,  lusty  place.  It  is  the  prairie 
town  In  its  teens.  It  has  not  yet  put  off  its  coltish 
air.  It  is  Winnipeg  just  leaving  school,  and  has 
the  wonderful  precocity  of  these  eager  towns  of  the 
West.  It  Is  running  almost  before  it  has  learnt 
to  walk. 

While  full-blooded  Indians  still  move  In  Its 
streets.  It  is  putting  up  buildings  worthy  of  a  Euro- 
pean metropolis.  It  has  opened  big  up-to-date 
stores  and  public  offices  by  the  side  of  streets  that 
are  yet  the  mere  stamped  earth  of  the  untutored 
plain. 

Along  Its  main  boulevard,  Jasper  Avenue,  slip  the 
astonishing  excess  of  automobiles  one  has  learnt  to 
expect  in  Canadian  towns.  A  brisk  electric  tram 
service  weaves  the  mass  of  street  movement  to- 
gether, and  at  night  over  all  shines  an  exuberance 
of  electric  light. 

That  main  street  is  tingling  with  modernity.  Its 
stores.  Its  music-halls,  its  "  movie  "  theatres,  and  Its 
hotels  glitter  with  the  nervous  Intensity  of  a  spirit 
avid  of  the  latest  ideas. 

Fringing   the   canyon   of   the   brown   North   Sas- 


The  Fringe  of  the  Great  Nortliwest    193 

katchewan  River  is  a  beautiful  automobile  road, 
winding  among  pretty  residential  plots  and  comely 
enough  for  any  town. 

Yet  swing  out  in  a  motor  for  a  few  miles,  and 
one  is  in  a  land  where  the  roads  —  if  any  —  are  but 
the  merest  trails,  where  the  silent  and  brooding 
prairie  (hereabouts  blessed  with  trees)  stretches 
emptily  for  miles  by  the  thousand. 

Turn  the  car  north,  and  it  heads  for  "  The  Great 
Lone  Land,"  that  expands  about  the  reticent 
stretches  of  the  Great  Slave  country,  or  follows  the 
Peace  River  and  the  Athabasca  beyond  the  cold  line 
of  the  Arctic  Circle. 

To  get  to  these  rich  and  isolated  lands  —  and  one 
thinks  this  out  in  the  lounge  of  an  hotel  worthy  of 
the  Strand  —  the  traveller  must  take  devious  and 
disconnected  ways.  Railways  tap  great  tracts  of 
the  country,  going  up  to  Fort  McMurray  and  the 
Peace  River,  and  these  connect  up  with  river  and 
lake  steamers  that  ply  at  intervals.  But  travel  here 
is  yet  mainly  in  the  speculative  stage,  and  long  waits 
and  guides  and  canoes  and  a  camping  outfit  are 
necessary. 

In  winter,  if  the  traveller  is  adventurous  and 
tough,  he  can  progress  more  swiftly.  He  can  go 
up  by  automobile  and  run  along  the  courses  of  the 
rivers  on  the  thick  ice,  and,  on  the  ice,  cross  the  big 
lakes. 

Though  the  land  is  within  the  Arctic  Circle,  it  is 
rich.  I  talked  with  a  traveller  who  had  just  re- 
turned from  this  area,  and  he  spoke  of  the  superb 
tall  crops  of  grain  he  had  seen  on  his  journey.     It 


194    Westward  with  the  Ynnce  of  Wales 

will  be  magnificent  land  when  it  is  opened  up,  and  can 
accommodate  the  population  of  a  kingdom.  The 
growing  season,  of  course,  is  shorter,  but  this  is 
somewhat  balanced  by  the  longer  northern  days  and 
the  intense  sunlight  that  is  proper  to  them.  The 
drawbacks  are  the  very  long  winters,  loneliness  and 
the  difficulties  of  transport. 

Edmonton,  sitting  across  the  gorge  of  the  Sas- 
katchewan, feeds  these  districts  and  reflects  them. 
Because  of  this  it  is  a  city  of  anachronisms.  High 
up  on  the  cliff,  its  site  chosen  with  the  usual  apposit- 
ness  of  Canada,  is  the  Capitol  building,  a  bright  and 
soaring  structure  done  in  the  latest  manner.  Right 
under  that  decisively  modern  pile  is  a  group  of  rough 
wooden  houses.  They  are  the  original  stores  of  the 
Hudson  Bay  Company,  standing  exactly  as  they 
did  when  they  formed  an  outpost  point  of  civilization 
in  the  Northwest. 

It  is  obviously  a  town  in  a  young  land,  pushing 
ahead,  as  the  Prince  indicated  in  his  speech  to  the 
Provincial  Government,  with  all  the  intensity  and 
zest  of  youth,  having  all  the  sense  of  freedom  and 
possibility  that  the  rich  and  great  farming,  fur- 
bearing  and  timber-growing  tracts  give  it. 


IV 

The  keen  spirit  of  the  city  was  reflected  in  the  wel- 
come it  gave  the  Prince.  It  was  a  wet,  grey  day, 
but  the  whole  town  was  out  to  line  the  streets  and  to 
gather  at  the  ceremonial  points.  And  it  was  a 
musical  greeting.     Edmonton   is  prone   to  melody. 


The  Fringe  of  the  Great  Northwest    195 

Brass  bands  appear  to  flourish  here.  There  was 
one  at  every  street  corner.  And  not  only  did  they 
play  as  the  Prince  in  the  midst  of  his  red-tuniced 
"  Mountie  "  escort  passed  by,  but  they  played  all 
day,  so  that  the  city  was  given  over  to  a  non-stop 
carnival  of  popular  airs. 

At  the  Parliament  Buildings  the  crowds  were  as 
dense  as  ever.  They  showed  the  same  spirit  in  listen- 
ing to  addresses  and  reply,  and  the  same  hustling 
sense  of  "  getting  there  "  when  entering  the  building 
to  take  part  in  the  public  reception.  The  addresses 
of  welcome  were  a  novelty.  Engrossed  on  vellum, 
it  had  been  sewn  on  the  purple  silk  lining  of  a  yel- 
low-furred coyote  skin,  a  local  touch  that  interested 
the  Prince.  There  was  another  such  touch  after  the 
reception.  A  body  of  Stony  Indians  were  presented 
to  His  Royal  Highness.  These  Indians  had  trav- 
elled from  a  distance  in  the  hope  of  seeing  the  son  of 
the  Great  White  Chief,  and  they  not  only  saw  him 
but  were  presented  to  him.  He  talked  with  particu- 
lar sympathy  to  one  chief  whose  son  had  been  a 
comrade-in-arms  in  the  Canadian  ranks  during  the 
war  and  who  had  been  killed  in  the  fighting. 

The  opening  of  a  war  memorial  hall,  a  big  and 
dazzling  dance  at  the  Government  House,  and  other 
functions,  fulfilled  the  usual  round.  And,  last  but 
not  least,  the  Prince  became  a  player  and  a  "  fan  " 
in  a  ball  game. 

There  was  a  match  (I  hope  "match"  is  right) 
between  the  local  team,  and  one  of  its  passionate 
rivals,  and  the  Prince  went  to  the  ground  to  take 
part.     Walking  to  the  "  diamond  "   (I'm  sure  that 


196    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

is  right),  he  equipped  himself  in  authentic  manner, 
with  floppy,  jockey-peaked  cap  and  a  ruthless  glance, 
took  his  stance  as  a  *'  pitcher  "  and  delivered  two 
balls.  I  don't  know  whether  they  were  stingers  or 
swizzers,  or  whatever  the  syncopated  phraseology 
of  the  great  game  dubs  them,  but  they  were  mat- 
ters of  great  admiration. 

Having  led  to  the  undoing  (I  hope,  for  that  was 
his  task)  of  some  one,  the  Prince  then  joined  the 
audience.  He  chose  not  the  best  seats,  but  the 
popular  ones,  for  he  sat  on  the  grass  among  the 
"  bleachers,"  and  when  one  has  sat  out  of  the  shade 
in  the  hot  prairie  sun  one  knows  what  "  bleachers  " 
means. 

This  sporting  little  interlude  was  immensely  popu- 
lar, and  the  Prince  left  Edmonton  with  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  a  true  "  fan  "  and  "  a  real  good  feller." 


CHAPTER  XV 

CALGARY   AND    THE    CA'ITLE    RANCH 

I 

T  I  ^HE  Royal  train  arriv^ed  In  Calgary,  Alberta, 
on  the  morning  of  Sunday,  September  14th, 
after  some  of  the  members  of  the  train  had 
spent  an  hour  or  so  shooting  gophers,  a  small  field 
rat,  part  squirrel,  and  at  all  times  a  great  pest  in 
grain  country. 

Calgary  was  a  town  that  charmed  at  once.  It 
stands  in  brilliant  sunlight  —  and  that  sunlight 
seems  to  have  an  eternal  quality  —  in  a  nest  of  en- 
folding hills.  Two  rivers  with  the  humorous  names 
of  Bow  and  Elbow  run  through  it;  they  are  blue  with 
the  astonishing  blueness  of  glacial  silt. 

From  the  hills,  or  from  the  tops  of  such  tall  build- 
ings as  the  beautiful  Palliser  Hotel,  the  high  and 
austere  dividing  line  of  the  Rockies  can  be  seen  across 
the  rolling  country.  Snow-cowled,  and  almost  im- 
palpable above  the  ground  mist,  the  great  range  of 
mountains  looks  like  the  curtain  wall  of  a  strong- 
hold of  mystics. 

In  the  streets  the  city  itself  has  an  air  of  radiance. 
There  is  an  invigoration  in  the  atmosphere  that 
seems  to  give  all  things  a  peculiar  quality  of  zest. 
The  sidewalks  have  a  bustling  and  crisp  virility,  the 
public  buildings  are  handsome,  and  the  streets  of 
homes  particularly  gracious. 

197 


198    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

The  Sunday  reception  of  the  Prince  was  eloquent 
but  quiet.  There  were  the  usual  big  crowds,  but  the 
day  was  deliberately  without  ceremonial.  Divine 
Service  at  the  Pro-Cathedral,  where  the  Prince  un- 
veiled a  handsome  rood-screen  to  the  memory  of 
those  fallen  in  the  war,  was  the  only  item  in  a  restful 
day,  which  was  spent  almost  entirely  in  the  country 
at  the  County  Club. 

But  perhaps  the  visit  to  the  County  Club  was  not 
altogether  quiet. 

The  drive  out  to  this  charming  place  in  a  pit  of  a 
valley,  where  one  of  the  rivers  winds  through  the 
rolling  hills,  began  in  the  comely  residential  streets. 

These  residential  districts  of  Canada  and  America 
certainly  impress  one.  The  well-proportioned  and 
pretty  houses,  with  their  deep  verandahs,  the  trees 
that  group  about  them,  the  sparkling  grass  that 
comes  down  to  the  edge  of  the  curb  —  all  give  one 
the  sense  of  being  the  work  of  craftsmen  who  are 
masters  in  design.  That  sense  seems  to  me  to  be 
evident,  not  only  in  domestic  architecture,  but  in 
the  design  of  public  buildings.  The  feeling  I  had 
was  that  the  people  on  this  Continent  certainly  know 
how  to  build.  And  by  building,  I  do  not  mean 
merely  erecting  a  house  of  distinction,  but  also  choos- 
ing sites  of  distinction. 

Nearly  all  the  newer  pubhc  buildings  are  of  excel- 
lent design,  and  all  are  placed  in  excellent  positions. 
Some  of  these  sites  are  actually  brilliant;  the  Parha- 
ment  Houses  at  Ottawa,  as  seen  from  the  river,  are 
intensely  apposite,  so  are  those  at  Edmonton  and 
Regina,  while  the  sites  of  such  buildings  as  the  Banff 


Calgary  and  the  Cattle  Ranch     199 

Springs  Hotel,  and,  in  a  lesser  sense,  the  Chateau  at 
Lake  Louise,  seem  to  me  to  have  been  chosen  with 
real  genius. 

In  saying  that  the  people  on  this  Continent  cer- 
tainly know  how  to  build,  I  am  speaking  of  both 
the  United  States  and  Canada.  This  fine  sense  of 
architecture  is  even  more  apparent  in  the  United 
States  (I,  of  course,  only  speak  of  the  few  towns  I 
visited)  than  in  Canada,  for  there  are  more  buildings 
and  it  is  a  richer  country.  The  sense  of  architecture 
may  spring  from  that  country,  or  it  may  be  that  the 
whole  Continent  has  the  instinct.  As  I  am  not  com- 
petent to  judge,  I  accuse  the  whole  of  the  Western 
hemisphere  of  that  virtue. 

The  Prince  passed  through  these  pretty  districts 
where  are  the  beautiful  houses  of  ranchers  and 
packing  kings,  farmers  and  pig  rearers  whose  energy 
and  vision  have  made  Calgary  rich  as  well  as  good 
to  look  upon.  Passing  from  this  region  of  good 
houses  and  good  roads,  he  came  upon  a  highway  that 
is  prairie  even  less  than  unalloyed,  for  constant  traf- 
fic has  scored  it  with  a  myriad  ruts  and  bumps. 

Half-way  up  a  hill,  where  a  bridge  of  wood  jumps 
across  the  stream  that  winds  amid  the  pleasant  gar- 
dens of  the  houses,  the  Prince's  car  was  held  up.  A 
mob  of  militants  rushed  down  upon  it,  and  neither 
chauffeur,  nor  Chief  of  Staff,  nor  suite  could  resist. 

It  was  an  attack  not  by  Bolshevists,  but  by  Boy 
Scouts.  They  flung  themselves  across  the  road  in  a 
mass,  and  would  take  no  nonsense  from  any  one. 
They  insisted  that  the  engine  should  take  a  holiday, 
and  that  they  should  hitch  themselves  to  the  car. 


200    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

I  II  -  -  — 

They  won  their  point  and  hitched.  The  car,  under 
some  hundred  boy-power,  went  up  the  long  hill  — 
and  a  gruelling  hill  it  is  —  through  the  club  gates, 
and  down  a  longer  hill,  to  where,  in  a  deep  cup,  the 
house  stands. 

At  the  club  the  visit  was  entirely  formal.  The 
Prince  became  an  ordinary  member  and  chatted  to 
other  men  and  women  members  in  a  thoroughly  club- 
like manner. 

*'  He  is  so  easy  to  get  on  with,"  said  one  lady. 
"  I  found  it  was  I  who  was  the  more  reserved  for 
the  first  few  minutes,  and  it  was  I  who  had  to  be- 
come more  human. 

"  He  is  a  young  man  who  has  something  to  say, 
and  who  has  ears  to  listen  to  things  worth  while. 
He  has  no  use  for  preliminaries  or  any  other  non- 
sense that  wastes  time  in  '  getting  together.'  " 

He  lunched  at  the  club  and  drifted  about  among 
the  people  gathered  on  the  lawns  before  going  for  a 
hard  walk  over  the  hills. 


II 

The  real  day  of  functions  was  on  Monday,  when 
the  Prince  drove  through  the  streets,  visiting  many 
places,  and,  later,  speaking  impressively  at  a  citizens' 
lunch  in  the  Palliser  Hotel. 

His  passage  through  the  streets  was  cheered  by 
big  crowds,  but  crowds  of  a  definite  Western  quality. 
Here  the  crowns  of  hats  climbed  high,  sometimes 
reaching  monstrous  peaks  that  rise  as  samples  of  the 
Rockies    from    curly   brims    as   monstrous.     Under 


Calgary  and  the  Cattle  Ranch    201 

these  still  white  felt  altitudes  are  the  vague  eyes  and 
lean,  contemplative  faces  of  the  cattlemen  from  the 
stock  country  around.  Here  and  there  were  other 
prairie  types  who  linger  while  the  tide  of  modernity 
rushes  past  them.  They  are  the  Indians,  brown, 
lined  and  forward  stooping,  whose  reticent  eyes  look- 
ing out  from  between  their  braided  hair  seem  to  be 
dwelling  on  their  long  yesterday. 

At  the  citizens'  lunch  the  Prince  departed  from  his 
usual  trend  of  speech-making  to  voice  some  of  the 
impressions  that  this  new  land  had  brought  to  him. 
He  once  more  spoke  of  the  sense  of  spaciousness  and 
possibility  the  vast  prairies  of  the  West  had  given 
him,  but  today  he  went  further  and  dwelt  upon  the 
need  of  making  those  possibilities  assured.  The 
foundation  that  had  made  the  future  as  well  as  the 
present  possible,  was  the  work  of  the  great  pioneers 
and  railway  men  who  had  mastered  the  country  in 
their  stupendous  labours,  and  made  it  fit  for  a  great 
race  to  grow  in. 

The  foundation  built  in  so  much  travail  was  ready. 
Upon  it  Canada  must  build,  and  it  must  build  right. 

"  The  farther  I  travel  through  Canada,"  he  said, 
"  the  more  I  am  struck  by  the  great  diversities  which 
it  presents;  its  many  and  varied  communities  are  not 
only  separated  by  great  distances,  but  also  by  diver- 
gent interests.  You  have  much  splendid  alien  hu- 
man material  to  assimilate,  and  so  much  has  already 
been  done  towards  cementing  all  parts  of  the  Domin- 
ion that  I  am  sure  you  will  ultimately  succeed  in 
accomplishing  this  great  task,  but  it  will  need  the  co- 
operation of  all  parties,  of  all  classes  and  all  races, 


202    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

working  together  for  the  common  cause  of  Canadian 
nationhood  under  the  British  flag. 

"  Serious  difficulties  and  controversies  must  often 
arise,  but  I  know  nothing  can  set  Canada  back  ex- 
cept the  failure  of  the  different  classes  and  com- 
munities to  look  to  the  wider  interests  of  the  Domin- 
ion, as  well  as  their  own  immediate  needs.  I  real- 
ize that  scattered  communities,  necessarily  preoccu- 
pied with  the  absorbing  task  of  making  good,  often 
find  the  wider  view  difficult  to  keep.  Yet  I  feel 
sure  that  it  will  be  kept  steadily  before  the  eyes  of  all 
the  people  of  this  great  Western  country,  whose  very 
success  in  making  the  country  what  it  is  proves  their 
staying  power  and  capacity." 

Canada,  he  declared,  had  already  won  for  herself 
a  legitimate  place  in  the  fraternity  of  nations,  and 
the  character  and  resources  within  her  Dominion 
must  eventually  place  her  influence  equal  to,  if  not 
greater  than,  the  influence  of  any  other  part  of  the 
Empire.  Much  depended  upon  Canada's  use  of  her 
power,  and  the  greatness  of  her  future  was  wrapped 
up  in  her  using  it  wisely  and  well. 

The  great  gathering  was  impressed  by  the  states- 
man-like quality  of  the  speech,  the  first  of  its  kind 
he  had  made  since  his  landing.  He  spoke  with 
ease,  making  very  little  use  of  his  notes  and  show- 
ing a  greater  freedom  from  nervousness.  The 
sincerity  of  his  manner  carried  conviction,  and  there 
was  a  great  demonstration  when  he  sat  down. 


Calgary  and  the  Cattle  Ranch    203 

III 

In  the  afternoon  he  left  Calgary  by  train  for  the 
small  '*  cow  town  "  of  High  River,  from  there  going 
on  by  car  over  roads  that  were  at  times  cart  ruts  in 
the  fields,  to  the  Bar  U  Ranch,  where  he  was  to  be 
the  guest  of  Mr.  George  Lane. 

His  host,  "  George  I^ane,"  as  he  is  called  every- 
where, is  known  as  far  as  the  States  and  England 
as  one  of  the  cattle  kings.  He  is  a  Westerner  of  the 
Westerners,  and  an  individuality  even  among  them. 
Tall  and  loose-built,  with  an  authentic  Bret  Harte 
quality  in  action  and  speech,  he  can  flash  a  glance 
of  shrewdness  or  humour  from  the  deep  eyes  under 
their  shaggy,  pent-house  brows.  He  is  one  of  the 
biggest  ranch  owners  in  the  West  (perhaps  the  big- 
gest) ;  his  judgment  on  cattle  or  'horses  is  law,  and 
he  has  no  frills. 

His  attractive  ranch  on  the  plains,  where  the  rol- 
ling lands  meet  the  foot-hills  of  the  Rockies,  has  an 
air  of  splendid  spaciousness.  We  did  not  go  to 
Bar  U,  but  a  friend  took  us  out  on  a  switchback 
automobile  run  over  what  our  driver  called  a 
"  hellofer  "  road,  to  just  such  another  ranch  near 
Cockrane,  and  we  could  judge  what  these  estates 
were  like. 

They  are  lonely  but  magnificent.  They  extend 
with  lakes,  close,  tight  patches  of  bush  and  small 
and  occasional  woods  over  undulating  country  to 
the  sharp,  bare  wall  of  the  snow-capped  Rockies. 
The  light  is  marvellous.  Calgary  is  3,500  feet  up, 
and  the  level  mounts  steadily  to  the  mountains.     At 


204    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

this  altitude  the  sunlight  has  an  astonishing  clarity, 
and  everything  is  seen  in  a  sharp  and  brilliant 
light. 

In  the  rambling  but  comfortable  house  of  the 
ranch  the  Prince  was  entertained  with  cattleman's 
fare,  and  on  the  Tuesday  (after  a  ten-mile  run  be- 
fore breakfast)  he  was  introduced  to  the  ardours 
of  the  cattleman's  calling.  He  mounted  a  broncho 
and  with  his  host  joined  the  cowboys  in  rounding 
several  thousand  head  of  cattle,  driving  them  in 
towards  the  branding  corrals. 

This  is  no  task  for  an  idler  or  a  slacker.  The 
bunch  was  made  up  mainly  of  cows  with  calves,  or 
steers  of  less  than  a  year  old,  who  believed  in  the 
policy  of  self-determination,  being  still  unbranded 
and  still  conspicuously  independent.  Most  of  them, 
in  fact,  had  seen  little  or  nothing  of  man  in  their 
life  of  lonely  pasturage  over  the  wide  plains. 

Riding  continually  at  a  gallop  and  in  a  whirlwind 
of  movement  and  dust  and  horns,  the  Prince  helped 
to  bunch  the  mass  into  a  compact  circle,  and  then 
joined  with  the  others  in  riding  into  the  nervous 
herd,  in  order  to  separate  the  calves  from  the 
mothers,  and  the  unbranded  steers  from  those  al- 
ready marked  with  the  sign  of  Bar  U. 

Calves  and  steers  were  roped  and  dragged  to  the 
corral,  where  they  were  flung  and  the  brand  seared 
on  their  flanks  with  long  irons  taken  from  a  fire 
in  the  enclosure. 

The  Prince  did  not  spare  himself,  and  worked  as 
hard  as  any  cattleman  in  the  business,  and  indeed  he 
satisfied   those    exacting   critics,    the   cowboys,    who 


Calgary  and  the  Cattle  Ranch    205 

produced  in  his  favour  another  Westernism,  de- 
scribing him  as  "  a  Bear.  He's  fur  all  over." 
Then,  as  though  a  strenuous  morning  in  the  saddle 
was  not  enough,  he  went  off  in  the  afternoon  after 
partridges,  spending  the  whole  time  on  the  tramp 
until  he  was  due  to  start  for  Calgary. 

His  pleasure  in  his  experience  was  summed  up  in 
the  terse  comment:  "Some  Ranch,"  that  he  set 
against  his  signature  in  Mr.  Lane's  visitors'  book. 
It  also  had  the  practical  result  of  turning  him  into 
a  rancher  himself,  for  it  was  at  this  time  he  saw  the 
ranch  which  he  ultimately  bought.  It  is  a  very  good 
little  property,  close  to  Mr.  Lane's,  so  that  in  run- 
ning it  the  Prince  will  have  the  advantage  of  that 
expert's  advice.  Part  of  the  Prince's  plan  for  hand- 
ling it  is  to  give  an  opportunity  to  soldiers  who  served 
with  him  in  the  war  to  take  up  positions  on  the 
ranch.  Mr.  Lane  told  me  himself  that  the  proposi- 
tion is  a  practical  one,  and  there  should  be  profitable 
results. 

Leaving  Bar  U,  the  Prince  returned  to  High 
River  at  that  Canadian  pace  of  travelling  which 
sets  the  timid  European  wondering  whether  his  ac- 
cident policy  is  fully  paid  up.  In  High  River, 
where  the  old  cow-puncher  ideal  of  hitting  up  the 
dust  in  the  wild  and  woolly  manner  has  given  way 
to  the  rule  of  jazz  dances  and  bright  frocks,  he 
mounted  the  train  and  steamed  off  to  Calgary. 

In  Calgary  great  things  had  been  done  to  the 
Armoury  where  the  ball  was  to  be  held.  Handled 
in  the  big  manner  of  the  Dominion,  the  great  hall 
had  been  re-floored  with  "  hard  wood  "  blocks,  and 


2o6    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

a  scheme  of  real  beauty,  extending  to  an  artificial 
sky  in  the  roof,  had  been  evolved. 

At  this  dance  the  whole  of  Calgary  seemed  in  at- 
tendance, either  on  the  floor,  or  outside  watching  the 
guests  arrive.  In  Canada  the  scope  of  the  invita- 
tions is  universal.  There  are  no  distinctions.  The 
pretty  ^rl  who  serves  you  with  shaving  soap  over 
the  drug  store  counter  asks  if  she  will  meet  you  at  the 
Prince's  ball,  as  a  matter  of  course.  She  is  going. 
So  is  the  young  man  at  the  estate  office.  So  is  your 
taxi  chauffeur  (the  taxi  is  an  open  touring  car).  So 
Is  —  everybody.  These  dances  are  the  most  demo- 
cratic affairs,  and  the  most  spirited.  And  as  spirited 
and  democratic  as  anybody  was  the  Prince  himself, 
who,  in  this  case,  in  spite  of  his  run  before  breakfast, 
a  hard  morning  in  the  saddle,  his  long  tramp  in  the 
afternoon,  his  automobile  and  railway  travelling, 
danced  with  the  rest  into  the  small  hours  of  the  morn- 
ing. 

All  the  little  boys  in  Calgary  watched  for  his 
arrival.  And  after  he  had  gone  in  there  was  a 
fierce  argument  as  to  who  had  come  in  closest  contact 
with  him.  One  little  boy  said  that  the  Prince  had 
looked  straight  at  him  and  smiled. 

Another  capped  it: 

"  He  shoved  me  on  the  shoulder  as  he  went  by," 
he  cried. 

The  inevitable  last  chimed  in: 

"  You  don't  make  it  at  all,"  he  said.  "  He  trod 
on  my  brother's  toe." 


CHAPTER  XVI 

CHIEF    MORNING    STAR    COMES    TO    BANFF    AND 
THE    ROCKIES 


IN  the  night  the  Royal  train  steamed  the  few 
miles  from  Calgary  and  on  the  morning  of 
Wednesday,  September  17th,  we  woke  up  in 
the  first  field  works  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

It  was  a  day  on  which  we  were  to  see  one  of  the 
most  picturesque  ceremonies  of  the  tour,  and  slip- 
ping through  the  high  scarps  of  the  mountains  to  the 
little  valley  in  which  Banff  station  stands,  we  were 
into  that  experience  of  colour  at  once. 

Drawn  up  in  the  open  by  the  little  station  was  a 
line  of  Indians,  clad  in  their  historic  costumes,  and 
mounted  on  the  small,  springy  horses  of  Canada. 
Some  were  in  feathers  and  buckskin  and  beads,  some 
in  the  high  felt  hats  and  bright  shirts  of  the  cowboy, 
all  were  roma'ntic  in-  bearing.  They  were  there  to 
form  the  escort  of  the  new  "  Chief." 

As  the  Prince's  car  drove  from  the  station  along 

a  road  that  wound  its  way  amid  glades  of  spruce  and 

poplar  glowing  with  the  old  gold  of  Autumn  that 

filled  the  valleys  winding  about  the  feet  of  high  and 

austere  mountains,  other  bodies  of  Stoney  Indians 

joined  the  escort  about  the  car. 

They  had  gathered  at  the  opening  of  every  side 

207 


2c8    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

lane,  and  as  the  cavalcade  passed,  dropped  in  behind, 
until  the  procession  became  a  snake  of  shifting  col- 
our, vermilion  and  cherry,  yellow  and  blue  and  green, 
going  forward  under  the  dappling  of  sun  that  slipped 
between  the  swinging  branches. 

Chiefs,  the  sunray  of  eagles'  feathers  on  their 
heads,  braves  in  full  war-paint,  Indian  cowboys  in 
shirts  of  all  the  colours  of  the  spectrum,  and  squaws 
a  mass  of  beads  and  sequins,  with  bright  shawls  and 
brighter  silk  head-wraps,  made  up  the  escort.  Be- 
hind and  at  times  in  front  of  many  of  the  squaws 
were  papooses,  some  riding  astraddle,  their  arms 
round  the  women's  waists,  others  slung  in  shawls, 
but  all  clad  in  Indian  garb  that  seemed  to  be  made 
up  of  a  mass  of  closely-sewn  beads,  turquoise,  green, 
white  or  red,  so  that  the  little  bodies  were  like  scaly 
and  glittering  lizards. 

This  ride  that  wound  in  and  out  of  these  very 
beautiful  mountain  valleys  took  the  Prince  past  the 
enclosures  of  the  National  Park,  and  he  saw  under 
the  trees  the  big,  hairy-necked  bison,  the  elk  and 
mountain  goats  that  are  harboured  In  this  great 
natural  reserve. 

On  the  racecourse  were  Indian  tepees,  banded, 
painted  with  the  heads  of  bulls,  and  bright  with  flags. 
The  braves  who  were  waiting  for  the  Prince,  and 
those  who  were  escorting  him,  danced,  their  ponies 
whirling  about,  racing  through  veils  of  dust  and 
fluttering  feathers  and  kerchiefs  in  a  sort  of  ride  of 
welcome.  From  over  by  the  tepees  there  came  the 
low  throbbing  of  tom-toms  to  join  with  the  thin, 
high,   dog-!ike  whoop  of  the  Indian  greeting. 


Chief  Mornii2g  Star  209 

On  a  platform  at  the  hub  of  half-circle  of  Indians 
the  Prince  listened  to  the  addresses  and  accepted  the 
Chieftaincy  of  the  Stoney  tribe.  Some  of  the  In- 
dians had  their  faces  painted  a  livid  chrome-yellow, 
so  that  their  heads  looked  like  masks  of  death;  some 
were  smeared  with  red,  some  barred  with  blue. 
Most,  however,  showed  merely  the  high-boned, 
sphinx-like  brown  of  their  faces  free  from  war-paint. 
The  costumes  of  many  were  extremely  beautiful,  the 
wonderful  beadwork  on  tunic  and  moccasins  being  a 
thing  of  amazing  craftsmanship,  though  the  elk-tooth 
decorations,  though  of  great  value,  were  not  so  at- 
tractive. 

Standing  In  front  of  the  rest,  the  chief,  *'  Little 
Thunder,"  read  the  address  to  the  Prince.  He  was 
a  big,  aquiline  fellow,  young  and  handsome,  clad  in 
white,  hairy  chaps  and  cowboy  shirt.  He  spoke  in 
sing-song  Cree,  his  body  curving  back  from  straddled 
knees  as  though  he  sat  a  pulling  horse. 

In  his  historic  tongue,  and  then  in  English,  he 
spoke  of  the  honour  the  Prince  was  paying  the 
Stoneys,  and  of  their  enduring  loyalty  to  him  and  his 
father;  and  he  asked  the  Prince  "  to  accept  from  us 
this  Indian  suit,  the  best  we  have,  emblematic  of  the 
clothes  we  wore  in  happy  days.  We  beg  you  also  to 
allow  us  to  elect  you  as  our  chief,  and  to  give  you  the 
name  Chief  Morning  Star." 

The  suit  given  to  the  Prince  was  an  exceedingly 
handsome  one  of  white  buckskin,  decorated  with 
beads,  feathers  and  fur,  and  surmounted  by  a  great 
headdress  of  feathers  rising  from  a  fillet  of  beads 
and  fur.     The  Prince  put  on  the  headdress  at  once, 


210    Westward  with  the  Trine e  of  Wales 

and  spoke  to  the  Indians  as  a  chief  to  his  braves,  tell- 
ing them  of  the  honour  they  had  done  him. 

When  he  had  finished,  the  tom-toms  were  brought 
into  action  again,  and  a  high,  thin  wail  went  up  from 
the  ring  of  Indians,  and  they  began  almost  at  once 
to  move  round  in  a  dance.  Indian  dancing  is  mo- 
notonous. It  is  done  to  the  high,  nasal  chanting  of 
men  gathered  round  a  big  drum  in  the  centre  of  the 
ring.  This  drum  is  beaten  stoically  by  all  to  give 
the  time. 

Some  of  the  dancing  is  the  mere  bending  of  knees 
and  a  soft  shuffling  stamping  of  moccasined  feet.  In 
other  dances  vividly  clad,  broad-faced,  comely  squaws 
joined  in  the  ring  of  braves,  whose  feathers  and  elk- 
tooth  ornaments  swung  as  they  moved,  and  the  whole 
ring,  with  a  slightly  rocking  movement,  shuffled  an 
inch  at  a  time  round  the  tom-tom  men.  The  motion 
was  very  like  that  of  soldiers  dressing  ranks. 

A  more  spirited  dance  is  done  by  braves  holding 
weapons  stiffly,  and  following  each  other  in  file  round 
the  circle,  now  bending  knees,  or  bodies,  now  stand- 
ing upright.  As  they  pass  round  and  dip  they  loose 
little  snapping  yelps.  All  the  time  their  faces  remain 
as  impassive  as  things  graven. 

The  dancing  was  followed  by  racing.  Boys 
mounted  bareback  the  springy  little  horses,  and  with 
their  legs  twisted  into  rope-girths  —  with  reins,  the 
only  harness  —  went  round  the  track  at  express 
speed.  Young  women,  riding  astride,  their  dresses 
tied  about  their  knees,  also  raced,  showing  horse- 
manship even  superior  to  the  boys.  The  riding  was 
extremely  fine,  and  the  little  horses  bunch  and  move 


Chief  Morning  Star  211 

with  an  elastic  and  hurtling  movement  that  Is  thrill- 
ing. 

The  ceremony  had  made  the  bravest  of  spectacles. 
The  Indian  colour  and  romance  of  the  scene,  set  In  a 
deep  cup  rimmed  by  steep,  grim  mountains,  the  sides 
and  Icecaps  of  which  the  bright  sunlight  threw  up 
Into  an  almost  unreal  actuality,  gave  It  a  rare  and 
entrancing  quality.  And  not  the  least  of  Its  pictur- 
esque attractions  were  the  papooses  in  bead  and 
fringed  leather,  who  grubbed  about  In  the  earth  with 
stoic  calm.  They  looked  almost  too  toylike  to  be 
true.  They  looked  as  though  their  right  place  was 
in  a  scheme  of  decoration  on  a  wall  or  a  mantel-shelf. 
As  one  lady  said  of  them:  "  They're  just  the  sort 
of  things  I  want  to  take  home  as  souvenirs." 


II 

Banff  Is  an  exquisite  and  Ideal  holiday  place,  and  I 
can  appreciate  the  impulse  that  sends  many  Amer- 
icans as  well  as  Canadians  to  enjoy  its  beauties  In  the 
summer. 

It  Is  a  valley  ringed  by  an  amphitheatre  of  moun- 
tains, up  the  harsh  slopes  of  which  spruce  forests 
climb  desperately  until  beaten  by  the  height  and  rock 
on  the  scarps  beneath  crests  which  are  often  snow- 
capped. Through  this  broad  valley,  and  winding 
round  slopes  Into  other  valleys,  run  streams  of  that 
poignant  blueness  which  only  glacial  silt  and  superb 
mountain  skies  can  Impart. 

The  houses  and  hotels  In  this  Switzerland  of  Can- 
ada   are   charming,    but   the    Banff    Springs    Hotel, 


212    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

where  the  Prince  stayed,  Is  genius.  It  Is  perched  up 
on  a  spur  In  the  valley,  so  that  in  that  immense  ring 
of  heights  it  seems  to  float  insubstantlally  above  the 
clouds  of  trees,  like  the  palace  of  some  genii.  For 
not  only  was  Its  site  admirably  chosen,  but  the  whole 
scheme  of  the  building  fits  the  atmosphere  of  the 
place.     And  it  is  as  comfortable  as  it  is  beautiful. 

It  faces  across  its  red-tiled,  white-balustered  ter- 
races and  vivid  lawns,  a  sharp  river  valley  that  strolls 
winding  amid  the  mountains.  And  just  as  this  river 
turns  before  it,  it  tumbles  down  a  rock  slide  In  a  vast 
mass  of  foam,  so  that  even  when  one  cannot  see  Its 
beauty  at  night,  its  roar  can  be  heard  in  the  wonder- 
ful silence  of  the  valley.  On  the  terrace  of  the  hotel 
are  two  bathing-pools  fed  from  the  sulphur  springs 
of  Banff,  and  here  Canadians  seem  to  bathe  all  day 
until  dance-time  —  and  even  slip  back  for  a  moon- 
light bath  between  dancing  and  bed. 

It  Is  an  ideal  place  for  a  holiday,  for  there  is  golf- 
ing, climbing,  walking  and  bathing  for  those  whose 
athletic  instincts  are  not  satisfied  with  beauty,  and 
automobile  rides  amid  beauty.  And  it  is,  of  course, 
a  perfect  place  for  honeymooners,  as  one  will  find 
by  consulting  the  Visitors'  Book,  for  with  character- 
istic frankness  the  Canadians  and  Americans  sign 
themselves : 

**  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jack  P.  Eeks,  Spokane.     We 
are  on  our  honeymoon.'' 

The  Prince  spent  an  afternoon  and  a  morning 
playing  golf  amid  the  immensities  of  Banff,  or  travel- 


Chief  Morning  Star  213 

ling  in  a  swift  car  along  its  beautiful  roads.  There 
are  most  things  in  Banff  to  make  man  happy,  even 
a  Goal  mine,  sitting  like  a  black  and  incongruous 
gnome  in  the  heart  of  enchanted  hills,  to  provide 
heat  against  mountain  chills. 

The  Prince  saw  the  sulphur  spring  that  bubbles 
out  of  quicksand  in  a  little  cavern  deep  in  the  hill- 
side —  a  cavern  made  almost  impregnable  by  smell. 
In  the  old  days  the  determined  bather  had  to  shin 
down  a  pole  through  a  funnel,  and  take  his  curative 
bath  in  the  rocky  oubliette  of  the  spring.  Now  the 
Government  has  arranged  things  better.  It  has 
carved  a  dark  tunnel  to  the  pool,  and  carried  the 
water  to  two  big  swimming  tanks  on  the  open  hillside, 
where  one  can  take  a  plunge  with  all  modern  acces- 
sories. 

Ill 

From  Banff  In  the  afternoon  of  Thursday,  Sep- 
tember 1 8th,  the  train  carried  the  Prince  through 
scenery  that  seemed  to  accumulate  beauty  as  he 
travelled  to  another  eyrie  of  loveliness.  Lake  Louise. 

At  Lakef  Louise  Station  the  railway  is  five  thou- 
sand feet  above  the  sea-level,  but  the  Chateau  and 
Lake  are  yet  higher,  and  the  Prince  climbed  to  them 
by  a  motor  railway  that  rises  clinging  to  the  moun- 
tain-side, until  it  twists  into  woods  and  mounts  up- 
ward by  the  side  of  a  blue-and-white  stream  dashing 
dow^nward,  with  an  occasional  breather  in  a  deep 
pool,  over  rocks. 

The  Chateau  is  poised  high  up  in  the  world  on  the 
lip  of  a  small  and  perfect  lake  of  poignant  blue,  that 


214    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

fills  the  cup  made  by  the  meeting  of  a  ring  of  massive 
heights.  At  the  end  of  the  lake,  miles  away,  but, 
thanks  to  the  queerness  of  mountain  perspective, 
looking  close  enough  to  touch,  rises  the  scarp  of 
Mount  Victoria,  capped  with  a  vast  glacier  that 
seemed  to  shine  with  curious  inner  lambency  under 
the  clear  light  of  the  grey  day.  There  is  a  touch 
of  the  theatre  in  that  view  from  the  windows  or  the 
broad  lawns  of  the  Chateau,  for  the  mountain  and 
glacier  is  a  huge  back-drop  seen  behind  wings  made 
by  the  shoulders  of  other  mountains,  and  all,  rock 
and  spruce  woods,  as  well  as  the  clear  shining  of  the 
ice,  are  mirrored  in  the  perfect  lake  that  makes  the 
floor  of  the  valley. 

Up  on  one  of  the  shoulders  of  the  lake,  hidden 
away  in  a  screen  of  trees,  is  the  home  of  an  English 
woman.  She  used  to  spend  her  days  working  in  a 
shop  in  the  West  End  of  London  until  happy  chance 
brought  her  to  Lake  Louise,  and  she  opened  a  tea 
chalet  high  on  that  lonely  crag.  She  has  changed 
from  the  frowsty  airs  of  her  old  life  to  a  place  where 
she  can  enjoy  beauty,  health  and  an  income  that  al- 
lows her  to  fly  off  to  California  when  the  winter 
comes.  The  Prince  went  up  to  take  tea  in  this  chalet 
of  romance  and  profit  during  his  walk  of  exercise. 

There  is  another  kind  of  romance  in  the  woods 
about  the  Chateau,  and  one  of  the  policemen  who 
guarded  the  Prince  made  its  acquaintance  during  the 
night.  In  the  dark  he  heard  the  noise  of  some  one 
moving  amid  the  trees  that  come  down  to  the  edge 
of  the  hotel  grounds.  He  thought  that  some  un- 
pleasant intruder  on   the   Prince's  privacy  was   at- 


i 


Chief  Morning  Star  215 

tempting  to  sneak  in  by  the  back  way.  He  marched 
up  to  the  edge  of  the  wood  and  waited  in  his  most 
legal  attitude  for  the  intruder  —  and  a  bear  cam'e 
out  to  meet  him.  Not  only  did  it  come  out  to  meet 
him,  but  it  reared  up  and  waved  its  paws  in  a 
thoroughly  militant  manner.  The  policeman  was  a 
ma«n  from  the  industrial  East,  and  not  having  been 
trained  to  the  habits  of  bears,  decided  on  a  strategic 
withdrawal. 

His  experience  was  one  of  the  next  day's  jokes, 
since  it  appears  that  bears  often  do  come  out  of  the 
woods  attracted  by  the  smell  of  hotel  cooking.  On 
the  whole  they  are  amiable,  and  are  no  more  difficult 
than  ordinary  human  beings  marching  in  the  direc- 
tion of  a  good  dinner. 

From  Lake  Louise  the  Prince  went  steadily  west 
through  some  of  the  most  impressive  scenery  in 
Canada.  The  gradient  climbs  resolutely  to  the 
great  lift  of  petrified  earth  above  Kicking  Horse 
Pass,  so  that  the  train  seemed  to  be  steaming  across 
the  sky. 

A  little  east  of  the  Pass  is  a  slight  monument 
called  "  the  Great  Divide."  Here  Alberta  meets 
British  Columbia,  and  here  a  stream  springs  from 
the  mountains  to  divide  itself  east  and  west,  one  fork 
joining  stream  after  stream,  until  as  a  great  river  it 
empties  into  Hudson  Bay;  the  other,  turning  west 
and  leaping  down  the  ledges  of  valleys,  makes  for 
the  Pacific. 

Beyond  "  the  Great  Divide  "  the  titanic  Kicking 
Plorse  Pass  opens  out.  It  falls  by  gigantic  levels 
for  1,300  feet  to  the  dim,  spruce-misted  valleys  that 


2i6    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

He  darkly  at  the  foot  of  the  giant  mountains.  It  is 
not  a  straight  canyon,  but  a  series  of  deeper  valleys 
opening  out  of  deep  valleys  round  the  shoulders  of 
the  grim  slopes.  Down  this  tortuous  corridor  the 
railway  creeps  lower,  level  by  level,  going  with  the 
physical  caution  of  a  man  descending  a  dangerous 
slope. 

The  line  feels  for  its  best  footholds  on  the  sides 
of  walls  that  drop  sheer  away,  and  tower  sheer  above. 
We  could  look  over  the  side  down  abrupt  precipices, 
and  see  through  the  dense  rain  of  the  day  the  mighty 
drop  to  where  the  Kicking  Horse  River,  after  leap- 
ing over  rocky  ramps  and  flowing  through  level  pools, 
ran  in  a  score  of  channels  on  the  wide  shingly  floor 
of  the  Pass. 

Beneath  us  as  we  descended  we  could  see  the  track 
twisting  and  looping,  as  it  sought  by  tunnelling  to 
conquer  the  exacting  gradient.  The  planning  of  the 
line  is,  in  its  own  way,  as  wonderful  as  the  natural 
marvel  of  the  Pass.  One  is  filled  with  awe  at  the 
vision,  the  genius  and  the  tenacity  of  those  great  rail- 
way men  who  had  seen  a  way  over  this  grim  moun- 
tain barrier,  had  schemed  their  line  and  had  mastered 
nature. 

At  Yoho  Station  that  clings  like  a  limpet  near  the 
top  of  this  soaring  barrier,  the  Prince  took  to  horse, 
and  rode  down  trails  that  wind  along  the  mountain- 
side through  thickets  of  trees  to  Field  at  the  foot  of 
the  drop.  The  rain  was  driving  up  the  throat  of  the 
valley  before  a  strong  wind,  and  it  was  not  a  good 
day  for  riding,  even  in  woolly  chaps  such  as  he  wore, 
but  he  set  out  at  a  gallop,  and  enjoyed  the  exercise 


Chief  Morning  Star  217 


and  the  scenery,  which  is  barbaric  and  tremendous, 
though  here  and  there  it  was  etherealized  by  sudden 
gleams  of  sunlight  playing  on  the  wet  foliage  of  the 
mountain-side  and  turning  the  wet  masses  into  rain- 
bows. 

During  this  ride  he  passed  under  the  stain  in  a 
sheer  wall  of  rock  that  gives  the  Pass  its  name.  For 
some  geological  reason  there  is,  high  up  in  a  straight 
mass  of  white  towering  cliff,  a  black  outcrop  that  is 
like  the  silhouette  of  an  Indian  on  a  horse.  I  could 
not  distinguish  the  kick  in  the  horse  myself,  but  I 
was  assured  it  was  there,  and  Kicking  Horse  is  thus 
named. 

From  Field,  a  breathing  space  for  trains,  about 
which  has  grown  a  small  village  possessing  one  good 
hotel,  the  Prince  rode  up  the  valleys  to  some  of  the 
beauty  spots,  such  as  Emerald  Lake,  which  lies  high 
in  the  sky  under  the  cold  glaciers  of  Mount  Burgess. 
It  was  a  wonderful  ride  through  the  spruce  and 
balsam  woods  of  these  high  valleys. 


IV 

During  Saturday,  September  20th,  the  train  was 
yet  in  the  mountains,  and  the  scenery  continued  to  be 
magnificent.  From  Field  the  line  works  down  to 
the  level  of  the  Columbia  River,  some  1,500  feet 
lower,  through  magnificent  stretches  of  mountain 
panorama,  and  through  breathless  gorges  like  the 
Palliser,  before  climbing  again  steeply  to  the  highest 
point  of  the  Selkirk  Range.  Here  the  train  seemed 
to  charge  straight  at  the  towering  wall  of  Mount 


2i8    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

MacDonald,  but  only  because  there  is  a  miracle  of 
a  tunnel  —  Connaught  Tunnel  —  which  coaxes  the 
line  down  by  easy  grades  to  Rogers  Pass,  the 
Illicilliwaet  and  Albert  Canyon.  Through  all  this 
stretch  the  scenery  is  superb.  In  the  gorges  and  the 
canyon  high  mountains  force  the  river  and  railway 
together,  until  the  train  runs  in  a  semi-darkness  be- 
tween sheer  cliffs,  with  the  water  foaming  and  tearing 
itself  forward  in  pent-up  fury  between  harsh,  rocky 
walls.  Sometimes  these  walls  encroach  until  the 
water  channel  is  forced  between  two  rocks  standing 
up  like  doorposts,  with  not  much  more  than  a  door- 
way space  between  them.  Through  these  gateways 
the  volume  of  water  surges  with  an  indescribable 
sense  of  power. 

At  places,  as  in  the  valley  of  the  Beavermouth, 
east  of  the  Connaught  Tunnel,  the  line  climbs  hugely 
upward  on  the  sides  of  great  ranges,  and,  on  precari- 
ous ledges,  hangs  above  a  gigantic  floor,  tree-clad 
and  fretted  with  water  channels.  The  train  crept 
over  spidery  bridges,  spanning  waterdrops,  and 
crawled  for  miles  beneath  ranges  of  big  timber  snow- 
sheds. 

The  train  stopped  at  the  pleasant  little  mountain 
town  of  Golden,  where  the  Prince  went  "  ashore," 
and  there  was  the  ceremony  of  reception.  This  was 
on  the  program.     The  next  stop  was  not. 

West  of  the  Albert  Canyon,  at  a  tiny  station  called 
Twin  Butte,  we  passed  another  train  standing  in  a 
siding,  with  a  long  straggle  of  men  in  khaki  waiting 
on  the  platform  and  along  the  track,  looking  at  us 
as  we  swept  along.     Abruptly  we  ceased  to  sweep 


Chief  Morning  Star  219 

along.  The  communication  cord  had  been  pulled, 
and  we  stopped  with  a  jerk. 

The  Prince  had  caught  sight  of  the  soldiers,  and 
had  recognized  who  they  were.  He  had  given 
orders  to  pull  up,  and  almost  before  the  brakes  had 
ground  home,  he  was  out  on  the  track  and  among  the 
men,  speaking  to  them  and  the  officers,  who  were 
delighted  at  this  unexpected  meeting. 

The  soldiers  were  English.  They  were  men  of 
the  25th  Middlesex,  H.A.C.  and  other  regiments, 
four  hundred  all  told.  They  had  come  from  Omsk, 
in  Russia,  by  way  of  the  Pacific,  and  were  being 
railed  from  Vancouver  to  Montreal  in  order  to  take 
ship  for  home.  The  men  of  the  Middlesex  were 
those  made  famous  by  the  sinking  of  their  trooper 
off  the  African  coast  in  19 16.  Their  behaviour  then 
had  been  so  admirable  that  it  will  be  remem- 
bered the  King  cabled  to  them,  "  Well  done,  Die- 
hards !  " 

By  ^the  isolated  railway  station  and  under  the 
lonely  mountains  so  far  from  their  homes,  they  were 
drawn  up,  and  the  Prince  made  an  informal  inspec- 
tion of  the  men  who  had  been  so  long  away,  and  who 
had  trav^elled  the  long  road  from  Siberia  on  their 
way  Blightyward. 

The  inspection  lasted  only  a  few  minutes,  and  the 
episode,  spontaneous  as  it  was  characteristic,  scarcely 
broke  the  run  into  Revelstoke.  But  it  was  the  hap- 
piest of  meetings. 

Revelstoke  is  a  small,  bright  mountain  town 
known,  as  its  inhabitants  say,  for  snow  and  straw- 
berries.    It  is  their  way  of  explaining  that  the  land 


220    Westzvard  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

in  this  deep  mountain  valley  is  splendidly  fertile,  and 
that  settlers  have  only  to  farm  on  a  small  scale  in 
order  to  make  a  comfortable  living,  though  in  winter 
it  Is  —  well,  of  the  mountains.  The  fishing  there 
is  also  extremely  good,  and  we  were  told  almost 
fabulous  tales  of  boys  who  on  their  journey  home 
from  school  spent  a  few  minutes  at  the  creeks  of  the 
Columbia  River,  and  went  on  their  way  bearing 
enough  fish  to  make  a  dinner  for  a  big  family. 

The  chief  feature  of  Revelstoke's  reception  was  a 
motor  run  up  Revelstoke  mountain,  a  four  thousand 
feet  ride  up  a  stiffish  road  that  climbed  by  corkscrew 
bends.  This  was  thrilling  enough,  for  there  were 
abrupt  depths  when  we  saw  Revelstoke  far  down  on 
the  valley  floor  looking  neat  and  doll-like  from  this 
airman's  eye-view,  and  we  had  to  cross  frail  wooden 
bridges  spanning  deep  crevices,  some  of  them  at 
ugly  corners. 

From  Revelstoke  the  train  went  on  to  Sicamous, 
where  it  remained  until  the  middle  of  Sunday,  Sep- 
tember 2 1  St.  Sicamous  is  merely  an  hotel  and  a 
few  houses  beside  a  very  beautiful  lake.  It  is  a 
splendid  fishing  centre,  for  a  chain  of  lakes  stretches 
south  through  the  valleys  to  Okanagan.  A  branch 
line  serves  this  district  (which  we  were  to  explore 
later),  where  there  are  rich  orchard  lands. 

With  Revelstoke,  Sicamous  acts  as  a  distributing 
centre  for  the  big  Kootenay  areas,  that  romantic 
land  of  the  earliest  trail  breakers,  those  dramatic 
fellows  who  pushed  all  ways  through  the  forest-clad 
valleys  after  gold  and  silver,  and  the  other  rich  re- 
wards of  the  prospector.     Even  now  the  country  has 


Chief  Morning  Star  221 

only  been  tapped,  and  there  are  many  new  discover- 
ies of  ore  in  the  grim  rock  of  the  district. 

A  short  stop  at  Kamloops  on  Sunday,  September 
2 1  St,  and  then  a  straight  run  through  the  night 
brought  us  to  Vancouver,  with  just  a  note  of  in- 
terest outside  the  Pacific  city.  For  miles  we  passed 
dumps  of  war  material,  shells,  ammunition  boxes, 
the  usual  material  of  armies.  It  was  lying  discarded 
and  decaying,  and  it  told  a  tragic  story.  It  was  the 
war  material  that  the  Allies  had  prepared  for  Russia. 
These  were  the  dumps  that  fed  the  transports  for 
Russia  plying  from  Vancouver.  After  the  peace  of 
Brest-Litovsk  all  work  ceased  about  them,  and  there 
they  remained  to  that  day,  monuments  to  the  Bol- 
shevik Peace. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE    PACIFIC    CITIES:      VANCOUVER   AND 
VICTORIA,    BRITISH    COLUMBIA 


VANCOUVER  was  land  after  a  mountain 
voyage.  With  the  feeHngs  of  a  seafarer 
seeing  cliffs  after  a  long  ocean  journey,  we 
reached  common,  flat  country  and  saw  homely  asphalt 
streets. 

There  can  be  no  two  points  of  view  concerning 
the  beauty  and  grandeur  of  the  mountain  scenery 
through  which  the  Prince  had  passed,  but  after  a 
succession  of  even  the  most  stimulating  gorges  and 
glaciers  one  does  turn  gladly  to  a  little  humanity  in 
the  lump.  Vancouver  was  humanity  in  the  lump, 
an  exceedingly  large  lump  and  of  peculiarly  warm 
and  generous  emotions.  We  were  glad  to  meet 
crowds  once  more. 

There  are  some  adequate  streets  in  this  great  west- 
em  port  of  Canada.  When  Vancouver  planned  such 
opulent  boulevards  as  Granville  and  Georgia  streets, 
it  must  have  been  thinking  hard  about  posterity, 
which  will  want  a  lot  of  space  if  only  to  drive  its 
superabundant  motors.  But  splendid  and  wide  and 
long  though  these  and  other  streets  be,  the  mass  of 
people   which   lined   them   on    Monday,    September 

22nd,  was  such  as  to  set  the  most  long-headed  town 

222 


The  Pacific  Cities  223 

planner  wondering  if,  after  all,  he  had  allowed 
enough  room  for  the  welcoming  of  Princes. 

From  the  vast,  orderly  throng  massed  behind  the 
red  and  tartan  of  the  Highland  guard  of  honour  at 
the  station,  thick  ranks  of  people  lined  the  whole  of 
a  long  route  to  Stanley  Park. 

This  crowd  not  only  filled  the  sidewalks  with  good- 
tempered  liveliness,  but  it  had  sections  in  all  the 
windows  of  the  fine  blocks  of  buildings  the  Prince 
passed.  Now  and  then  it  attempted  to  emulate  the 
small  boys  who  ran  level  with  the  Prince's  car  cheer- 
ing to  full  capacity,  and  caring  not  a  jot  whether  a 
"  Mounty  "  of  the  escort  or  a  following  car  went 
over  them,  but  on  the  whole  the  crowd  was  more  in 
hand  than  usual. 

This  does  not  mean  that  it  was  less  enthusiastic. 
The  reception  was  of  the  usual  stirring  quality,  and 
it  culminated  in  an  immense  outburst  in  Stanley 
Park. 

It  was  a  touch  of  genius  to  place  the  official  recep- 
tion in  the  Park.  It  is,  in  a  sense,  the  key-note  of 
Vancouver.  It  gives  it  its  peculiar  quality  of  charm. 
It  is  a  huge  park  occupying  the  entirety  of  a  penin- 
sula extending  from  the  larger  peninsula  upon  which 
Vancouver  stands.  It  has  sea-water  practically  all 
round  it.  In  it  are  to  be  found  the  greatest  and 
finest  trees  in  Canada  in  their  most  natural  surround- 
ings. 

It  is  one  big  "  reservation  "  for  trees.  Those 
who  think  that  they  can  improve  upon  nature  have 
had  short  shrift,  and  the  giant  Douglas  pine,  the  firs 
and  the  cedars  thrive  naturally  in  a  setting  that  has 


224    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

remained  practically  untouched  since  the  day  when 
the  British  seaman,  Captain  Vancouver,  explored 
the  sounds  of  this  coast.  It  is  an  exquisite  park  hav- 
ing delightful  forest  walks  and  beautiful  waterside 
views. 

Under  the  great  trees  and  in  a  wilderness  of 
bright  flowers  and  flags  as  bright,  a  vast  concourse 
of  people  was  gathered  about  the  pretty  pavilion  in 
the  park  to  give  the  Prince  a  welcome.  The  func- 
tion had  all  the  informality  of  a  rather  large  picnic, 
and  when  the  sun  banished  the  Pacific  "  smoke,"  or 
mist,  the  gathering  had  infinite  charm. 

After  this  reception  the  Prince  went  for  a  short 
drive  in  the  great  park,  seeing  its  beautiful  glades; 
looking  at  Burrard  Inlet  that  makes  its  harbour  one 
of  the  best  in  the  world,  and  getting  a  glimpse  of 
English  Bay,  where  the  sandy  bathing  beaches  make 
it  one  of  the  best  sea-side  resorts  in  the  world  as 
well.  At  all  points  of  the  drive  there  were  crowds. 
And  while  most  of  those  on  the  sidewalks  were 
Canadian,  there  was  also,  as  at  "  Soo,"  a  good 
sprinkling  of  Americans.  They  had  come  up  from 
Seattle  and  Washington  county  to  have  a  first-hand 
look  at  the  Prince,  and  perhaps  to  "  jump  "  New 
York  and  the  eastern  Washington  in  a  racial  desire 
to  get  in  first. 

In  this  long  drive,  as  well  as  during  the  visit  we 
paid  to  Vancouver  on  our  return  from  Victoria,  there 
was  a  considerable  amount  of  that  mist  which  the 
inhabitants  call  "  smoke,"  because  it  is  said  to  be  the 
result  of  forest  fires  along  the  coast,  in  the  air.  Yet 
in  spite  of  the  mist  we  had  a  definite  impression  of 


The  Pacific  Cities  225 

a  fine,  spacious  city,  beautifully  situated  and  well 
planned,  with  distinguished  buildings.  And  an  im- 
pression of  people  who  occupy  themselves  with  the 
arts  of  business,  progress  and  living  as  becomes  a 
port  not  merely  great  now,  but  ordained  to  be 
greater  tomorrow. 

It  is  a  city  of  very  definite  attraction,  as  perhaps 
one  imagined  it  would  be,  from  a  place  that  links 
directly  with  the  magical  Orient,  and  trades  in  silks 
and  tea  and  rice,  and  all  the  romantic  things  of  those 
lands,  as  well  as  in  lumber  and  grain  with  all  the 
colourful  towns  that  fringe  the  wonderful  Pacific 
Coast. 

Vancouver  has  been  the  victim  of  the  "  boom 
years."  Under  the  spell  of  that  "  get-rich-quick  " 
impulse,  it  outgrew  its  strength.  It  is  getting  over 
that  debility  now  (and  perhaps,  after  all,  the  "  boom- 
sters  "  were  right,  if  their  method  was  anticipatory) 
and  a  fine  strength  is  coming  to  it.  When  conditions 
ease  and  requisitioned  shipping  returns  to  its  wharves, 
and  its  own  building  yards  make  up  the  lacking  keels, 
it  should  climb  steadily  to  its  right  position  as  one  of 
the  greatest  ports  in  the  British  Empire. 


II 

Vancouver,  as  it  is  today,  is  a  peculiarly  British 
town.  Its  climate  is  rather  British,  for  its  winter 
season  has  a  great  deal  of  rain  where  other  parts 
of  Canada  have  snow,  and  its  climate  is  Britishly 
warm  and  soft.  It  attracts,  too,  a  great  many 
settlers  from  home,  its  newspapers  print  more  British 


226    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

news  than  one  usually  finds  in  Canadian  papers  (ex- 
cepting such  great  Eastern  papers  as,  for  instance, 
The  Montreal  Gazette) ,  and  its  atmosphere,  while 
genuinely  Canadian,  has  an  English  tone. 

There  is  not  a  little  of  America,  too,  in  its  air,  for 
great  American  towns  like  Seattle  are  very  close 
across  the  border  —  in  fact  one  can  take  a  "  jitney  " 
to  the  United  States  as  an  ordinary  item  of  sight- 
seeing. Under  these  circumstances  it  was  not  un- 
natural that  there  should  be  an  interesting  touch  of 
America  in  the  day's  functions. 

The  big  United  States  battleship  New  Mexico 
and  some  destroyers  were  lying  in  the  harbour,  and 
part  of  the  Prince's  program  was  to  have  visited 
Admiral  Rodman,  who  commanded.  The  ships, 
however,  were  in  quarantine,  and  this  visit  had  to 
be  put  off,  though  the  Admiral  himself  was  a  guest 
at  the  brilliant  luncheon  in  the  attractive  Vancouver 
Hotel,  when  representatives  from  every  branch  of 
civic  hfe  in  greater  Vancouver  came  together  to 
meet  the  Prince. 

In  his  speech  the  Prince  made  direct  reference  to 
the  American  Navy,  and  to  the  splendid  work  it  had 
accompHshed  in  the  war.  He  spoke  first  of  Van- 
couver, and  its  position,  now  and  in  the  future,  as  one 
of  the  greatest  bases  of  British  sea  power.  Van- 
couver, he  explained,  also  brought  him  nearer  to 
those  other  great  countries  in  the  British  Dominions, 
Australia  and  New  Zealand,  and  it  seemed  to  him 
it  was  a  fitting  link  in  the  chain  of  unity  and  co-opera- 
tion —  a  chain  made  more  firm  by  the  war  —  that 
the  British  Empire  stretched  round  the  world.     It 


The  Pan  fie  Cities  227 

was  a  chain,  he  felt,  of  kindred  races  inspired  by 
kindred  ideals.  Such  ideals  were  made  more  ap- 
parent by  the  recent  and  lamented  death  of  that 
great  man.  General  Botha,  who,  from  being  an 
Africander  leader  in  the  war  against  the  British 
eighteen  years  ago,  had  yet  lived  to  be  one  of  the 
British  signatories  at  the  Treaty  of  Versailles. 
Nothing  else  could  express  so  significantly  the 
breadth,  justice  and  generosity  of  the  British  spirit 
and  cause. 

Turning  to  Admiral  Rodman,  he  went  on  to  say 
that  he  felt  that  that  spirit  had  its  kinship  in  Amer- 
ica, whose  Admiral  had  served  with  the  Grand  Fleet. 
Of  the  value  of  the  work  those  American  ships  under 
Admiral  Rodman  did,  there  could  be  no  doubt.  He 
had  helped  the  Allies  with  a  most  magnificent  and 
efficient  unit. 

At  no  other  place  had  the  response  exceeded  the 
warmth  shown  that  day.  The  Prince's  manner  had 
been  direct  and  statesmanlike,  each  of  his  points  was 
clearly  uttered,  and  the  audience  showed  a  keen  quick- 
ness in  picking  them  up. 

Admiral  Rodman,  a  heavily-built  figure,  with  the 
American  light,  dryness  of  wit,  gave  a  new  synonym 
for  the  word  "  AUies  " ;  to  him  that  word  meant 
"  Victory."  It  was  the  combination  of  every  effort 
of  every  Ally  that  had  won  the  war.  Yet,  at  the 
same  time,  practical  experience  had  taught  him  to 
feel  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  way  the  Grand 
Fleet  had  done  its  duty  from  the  very  outset,  the  re- 
sult of  the  war  would  have  been  diametrically  oppo- 
site.    Feelingly,   he  described  his  service  with  the 


228    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

Grand  Fleet.  He  had  placed  himself  unreservedly 
under  the  command  of  the  British  from  the  moment 
he  had  entered  European  waters,  yet  so  complete  was 
the  co-operation  between  British  and  Americans  that 
he  often  took  command  of  British  units.  The  splen- 
did war  experience  had  done  much  to  draw  the  great 
Anglo-Saxon  nations  together.  Their  years  to- 
gether had  ripened  into  friendship,  then  into  com- 
radeship, then  into  brotherhood.  And  that  brother- 
hood he  wished  to  see  enduring,  so  that  if  ever  the 
occasion  should  again  arise  all  men  of  Anglo-Saxon 
strain  should  stand  together. 

There  was  real  warmth  of  enthusiasm  as  the  Ad- 
miral spoke.  Those  present,  whose  homes  are  close 
to  those  of  their  American  neighbours  living  across 
a  frontier  without  fortifications,  in  themselves  ap- 
preciated the  essential  sympathy  that  exists  between 
the  two  great  nations.  When  the  Admiral  conveyed 
to  the  Prince  a  warm  invitation  to  visit  the  United 
States,  this  enthusiasm  reached  its  highest  point.  It 
was,  in  its  way,  an  international  lunch,  and  a  happy 
one. 

Ill 

After  reviewing  the  Great  War  Veterans  on  the 
quay-side,  the  Prince  left  Vancouver  just  before 
lunch  time  on  Tuesday,  September  23rd,  for  Vic- 
toria, the  capital  of  British  Columbia,  which  lies 
across  the  water  on  Vancouver  Island. 

It  was  a  short  run  of  five  hours  in  one  of  the  most 
comfortable  boats  I  have  ever  been  in  —  the  Prin- 
cess Alice,  which  is  on  the  regular  C.P.R.  service. 


The  Pacific  Cities  229 

taking  in  the  fjords  and  towns  of  the  British  Colum- 
bian coast. 

Leaving  Vancouver,  where  the  towering  buildings 
give  an  authentic  air  of  modern  romance  to  the  sky- 
line, a  sense  of  glamour  went  with  us  across  the  sea. 
The  air  was  still  tinged  with  "  smoke  "  and  the 
fabled  blue  of  the  Pacific  was  not  apparent,  but  we 
could  see  curiously  close  at  hand  the  white  cowl  of 
Mount  Baker,  which  is  America,  and  we  passed  on  a 
zig-zag  cour^  through  the  scattered  St.  Juan  Islands, 
each  of  which  seemed  to  be  charming  and  lonely 
enough  to  stage  a  Jack  London  story. 

On  the  headlands  or  beaches  of  these  islands  there 
were  always  men  and  women  and  children  to  wave 
flags  and  handkerchiefs,  and  to  send  a  cheer  across 
the  water  to  the  Prince.  One  is  surprised,  so  much 
is  the  romantic  spell  upon  one,  that  the  people  on 
these  islets  of  loneliness  should  know  that  the  Prince 
was  coming,  that  is,  one  is  surprised  until  one  realizes 
that  this  is  Canada,  and  that  telegraphs  and  tele- 
phones and  up-to-date  means  of  communication  are 
commonplaces  here  as  everywhere. 

Romance  certainly  invades  one  on  entering  Vic- 
toria. It  seems  a  city  out  of  a  kingdom  of  Anthony 
Hope's,  taken  in  hand  by  a  modern  Canadian  ad- 
ministration. Steaming  up  James  Bay  to  the  har- 
bour landing  one  feels  that  it  is  a  sparkling  city  where 
the  brightest  things  in  thrilling  fiction  might  easily 
happen. 

The  bay  goes  squarely  up  to  a  promenade.  Be- 
hind the  stone  balustrade  is  a  great  lawn,  and  be- 
yond that,  amid  trees,  is  a  finely  decorative  building, 


230    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

z  fitted  back-ground  to  any  romance,  though  it  is 
actually  an  hotel  de  luxe.  To  the  left  of  the  square 
head  of  the  water  is  a  distinguished  pile;  it  is  the 
Customs  House,  but  it  might  be  a  temple  of  dark 
machinations.  To  the  right  is  a  rambling  building, 
ornate  and  attractive,  with  low,  decorated  domes 
and  outflung  and  rococo  wings.  That  could  easily 
be  the  palace  of  at  least  a  sub-rosa  royalty,  though 
it  is  the  House  of  Parliament.  The  whole  of  this 
square  grouping  of  green  grass  and  white  buildings, 
in  the  particularly  gracious  air  of  Victoria  gives  a 
glamorous  quality  to  the  scene. 

Victoria's  welcome  to  the  Prince  was  modern 
enough.  Boat  sirens  and  factory  hooters  loosed  a 
loud  welcome  as  the  steamer  came  in.  A  huge 
derrick  arm  that  stretched  a  giant  legend  of  Wel- 
come out  into  the  harbour,  swung  that  sign  to  face 
the  Princess  Alice  all  the  time  she  was  passing,  and 
then  kept  pace  on  its  rail  track  so  that  Welcome 
should  always  be  abreast  of  the  Prince. 

The  welcome,  too,  of  the  crowds  on  that  day 
when  he  landed,  and  on  the  next  when  he  attended 
functions  at  the  Parliament  buildings,  was  as  Cana- 
dian and  up-to-date  as  anywhere  else  in  the  Domin- 
ion. The  croAvds  were  immense,  and,  at  one  time, 
when  little  girls  stood  on  the  edge  of  a  path  to  strew 
roses  in  front  of  him  as  he  walked,  there  was  some 
danger  of  the  eager  throngs  submerging  both  the 
little  girls  and  the  charming  ceremony  in  anxiety  to 
get  close  to  him. 

The  crowd  in  Parliament  Square  during  the  cere- 
monies of  Wednesday,  September  24th,  was  prodi- 


The  Pacific  Cities  231 

gious.  From  the  hotel  windows  the  whole  of  the 
great  green  space  before  the  Parliament  buildings 
was  seen  black  with  people  who  stayed  for  hours  in 
the  hope  of  catching  sight  of  the  Prince  as  he  went 
from  one  ceremony  to  another. 

It  was  a  gathering  of  many  races.  There  were 
Canadians  born  and  Canadians  by  residence.  Vivid 
American  girls  come  by  steamer  from  Seattle  were 
there.  There  were  men  and  women  from  all  races 
in  Europe,  some  of  them  Canadians  now,  some  to  be 
Canadians  presently.  There  w^ere  Chinese  and 
Japanese  in  greater  numbers  than  we  had  seen  else- 
where, for  Victoria  is  the  nearest  Canadian  city  to 
the  East.  There  were  Hindus,  and  near  them  sur- 
vivors of  the  aboriginal  race,  the  Songhish  Indians, 
who  lorded  it  in  Vancouver  Island  before  the  white 
man  came. 

And  giving  a  special  quality  to  this  big  cosmopoli- 
tan gathering  was  the  curious  definitely  English  air 
of  Victoria.  It  is  the  most  English  of  Canadian 
cities.  Its  even  climate  is  the  most  English,  and  its 
air  of  well-furnished  leisure  is  English.  Because  of 
this,  or  perhaps  I  should  say  the  reason  for  this  is 
that  it  is  the  home  of  many  Englishmen.  Not  only 
do  settlers  from  England  come  here  in  numbers,  but 
many  English  families,  particularly  those  from  the 
Orient  East,  who  get  to  know  its  charms  when  travel- 
ling through  it  on  their  way  across  Canada  and  home, 
come  here  to  live  when  they  retire.  And  this  dis- 
tinctly English  atmosphere  gets  support  in  great 
measure  from  the  number  of  rich  Canadians  who,  on 
ceasing  their  life's  work,  come  here  to  live  in  leisure. 


232    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

Yet  though  this  Is  responsible  for  the  growing  up 
in  Victoria  of  some  of  the  most  beautiful  residential 
districts  In  Canada,  where  beautiful  houses  combine 
with  the  lovely  scenery  of  country  and  sea  in  giving 
the  city  and  its  environments  a  delightful  charm, 
Victoria  is  vigorously  industrial  too. 

It  has  shipbuilding  and  a  brisk  commerce  in  lum- 
ber, machinery  and  a  score  of  other  manufactories, 
and  it  serves  both  the  East  and  the  Canadian  and 
American  coast.  It  has  fine,  straight,  broad  streets, 
lined  with  many  distinguished  buildings,  and  its 
charm  has  virility  as  well  as  ease. 


IV 

The  Prince  made  a  long  break  in  his  tour  here, 
remaining  until  Sunday,  September  28th.  Most  of 
this  stay  was  given  over  to  restful  exercise ;  he  played 
golf  and  went  for  rides  through  the  beautiful  country- 
side. There  were  several  functions  on  his  pro- 
gram, however.  He  visited  the  old  Navy  Yard 
and  School  at  Esqulmault,  and  he  took  a  trip  on  the 
Island  railway  to  Duncans,  Ladysmith,  Nanaimo  and 
Quallcum. 

At  each  of  these  towns  he  had  a  characteristic 
welcome,  and  at  some  gained  an  insight  into  local  in- 
dustries, such  as  lumbering  and  the  clearing  of  land 
for  farming.  On  the  return  journey  he  mounted 
the  engine  cab  and  came  most  of  the  way  home  in 
this  fashion. 

The  country  in  the  Island  Is  serene  and  attractive, 
extremely  like  England,  being  reminiscent  of  the  rol- 


The  Pacific  Cities  233 

ling  wooded  towns  in  Surrey,  though  the  English- 
man misses  the  hedges.  The  many  sea  inlets  add 
beauty  to  the  scenery,  and  there  are  delightful  rides 
along  roads  that  alternately  run  along  the  water's 
edge,  or  hang  above  these  fjords  on  high  cliff  ledges. 

In  one  of  our  inland  drives  we  were  taken  to  an 
extraordinary  and  beautiful  garden.  It  is  a  serene 
place,  laid  out  with  exquisite  skill.  In  one  part  of  it 
an  old  quarry  has  been  turned  into  a  sunken  garden. 
Here  with  straight  cliffs  all  round  there  nests  a 
wilderness  of  flowers.  Small,  artificial  crags  have 
been  reared  amid  the  rockeries  and  the  flowers,  and 
by  small,  artificial  paths  one  can  climb  them.  A 
stream  cascades  down  the  cliff,  and  flows  like  a  beau- 
tiful toy-thing  through  the  dainty  artificial  scenery. 

In  another  part  of  the  grounds  is  a  Japanese  gar- 
den, with  tiny  pools  and  moon  bridges  and  bamboo 
arbours  —  and  flowers  and  flowers  and  flowers. 
And  not  only  does  the  maker  of  this  enchanted  spot 
throw  it  open  to  the  public,  but  he  has  built  for 
visitors  a  delightful  chalet  where  they  can  take  tea. 
This  chalet  is  a  big,  comely  hall,  with  easy  chairs  and 
gate  tables.  It  is  provided  with  all  the  American 
magazines.  In  a  tiny  outbuilding  is  a  scullery  with 
cups  and  saucers  and  plates  and  teapots  —  all  for 
visitors. 

The  visitors  take  their  own  food,  and  use  these 
articles.  The  Chinese  cook  at  the  house  near  by 
provides  boiling  water,  and  all  the  owner  asks  is 
that  those  who  use  his  crockery  shall  wash  it  up  at 
the  sink  provided,  and  with  the  dish-cloths  provided, 
and  leave  it  in  readiness  for  the  next  comer. 


234    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

That  generosity  Is  the  final  and  completing  touch 
to  the  charm  of  that  exquisite  place,  which  is  a 
veritable  "  Garden  of  iVllah  "  amid  the  beauties  of 
Canadian  scenery. 

Another  drive  was  over  the  Malahat  Pass, 
through  superb  country,  to  a  big  lumber  camp  on 
Shawnigan  Lake.  Here  we  saw  the  whole  of  the 
operations  of  lumbering  from  the  point  where  a  log- 
ger notches  a  likely  tree  for  cutting  to  the  final  mo- 
ment when  Chinese  workmen  feed  the  great  trunks 
to  the  steam  saw  that  hews  them  into  beams  and 
planks. 

Having  selected  a  tree,  the  first  logger  cuts  into  it 
a  deep  wedge  which  Is  to  give  It  direction  in  its  fall. 
These  men  show  an  almost  uncanny  skill.  They  get 
the  line  of  a  great  tree  with  the  handle  of  their  axes, 
as  an  artist  uses  a  pencil,  and  they  can  cut  their 
notches  so  accurately  that  they  can  "  fall  "  a  tree  on 
a  pocket-handkerchief. 

Two  men  follow  this  expert.  They  cut  smaller 
notches  in  the  tree,  and  Insert  their  "  boards  "  Into 
it.  These  "  boards  "  have  a  steel  claw  which  bites 
into  the  tree  when  the  men  stand  on  the  board,  the 
idea  being  both  to  raise  the  cutters  above  the  sprawl- 
ing roots,  and  to  give  their  swing  on  the  saw  an 
elasticity.  It  is  because  they  cut  so  high  that  Canada 
is  covered  with  tall  stumps  that  make  clearing  a  prob- 
lem. The  stumps  are  generally  dynamited,  or  torn 
up  by  the  roots  by  cables  that  pass  through  a  block  on 
the  top  of  a  tree  to  the  winding-drum  of  a  donkey- 
engine. 

When  the  men  at  the  saw  have  cut  nearly  through 


The  Pacific  Cities  235 

the  tree,  they  sing  out  a  drawling,  musical  "  Stand 
aw-ay,"  gauging  the  moment  with  the  skill  of  woods- 
men, for  there  is  no  sign  to  the  lay  eye.  In  a  few 
moments  the  giant  tree  begins  to  fall  stiffly.  It 
moves  slowly,  and  then  with  its  curious  rigidity  tears 
swiftly  through  the  branches  of  neighbouring  trees, 
coming  to  the  ground  with  a  thump  very  much  like 
the  sound  of  an  H.E.  shell,  and  throwing  up  a  red 
cloud  of  torn  bark.  The  sight  of  a  tree  falling  is  a 
moving  thing;  it  seems  almost  cruel  to  bring  it  down. 

A  donkey-engine  mounted  on  big  logs,  that  has 
pulled  itself  into  place  by  the  simple  method  of 
anchoring  its  steel  rope  to  a  distant  tree  —  and  pull- 
ing, jerks  the  great  trunks  out  of  the  heart  of  the 
forest.  A  block  and  tackle  are  hitched  to  the  top 
of  a  tall  tree  that  has  been  left  standing  in  a  clear- 
ing, and  the  steel  ropes  are  placed  round  the  fallen 
trunks.  As  this  lifting  line  pulls  them  from  their 
resting-place,  they  come  leaping  and  jerking  forward, 
charging  down  bushes,  rising  over  stumps,  dropping 
and  hurdling  over  mounds  until  it  seems  that  they  are 
actually  living  things  struggling  to  escape.  The 
ubiquitous  donkey-engine  loads  the  great  logs  on 
trucks,  and  an  engine,  not  very  much  bigger  than  a 
donkey-engine,  tows  the  long  cars  of  timber  down 
ov^er  a  sketchy  track  to  the  waterside. 

Here  the  loads  are  tipped  with  enormous  splashes 
into  the  water  to  wait  in  the  "  booms  "  until  they  are 
wanted  at  the  mill.  Then  they  are  towed  across, 
sure-footed  men  jump  on  to  them  and  steer  them  to 
the  big  chute,  where  grappling  teeth  catch  them  and 
pull  them  up  until  they  reach  the  sawing  platform. 


236    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

They  are  jerked  on  to  a  movable  truck,  that  grips 
them,  and  turns  them  about  with  mechanical  arms 
into  the  required  position  for  cutting,  and  then  log 
and  truck  are  driven  at  the  saw  blade,  which  slices 
beams  or  planks  out  of  the  primitive  trunk  with  an 
almost  sinister  ease. 

Uncanny  machines  are  everywhere  in  this  mill. 
Machines  carve  shingles  and  battens  or  billets  with 
an  almost  human  accuracy.  A  conveyor  removes  all 
sawdust  from  the  danger  of  lights  with  mechanical 
intelligence.  Another  carries  off  all  the  scrapwood 
and  takes  it  away  to  a  safe  place  in  the  mill  yard 
where  a  big,  wire-hooded  furnace,  something  like  a 
straight  hop  oast-house,  burns  every  scrap  of  it. 

The  life  in  the  lumber  camp  is  a  hard  life,  but  it 
is  well  paid,  it  is  independent,  and  the  food  is  a 
revelation.  The  loggers'  lunch  we  were  given  was  a 
meal  fit  for  gourmets.  It  was  in  a  rough  pitch-pine 
hut  at  rough  tables.  Clam-soup  was  served  to  us  in 
cylindrical  preserved  meat  cans  on  which  the  maker's 
labels  still  clung  —  but  it  lost  none  of  its  delightful 
flavour  for  that.  Beef  was  served  cut  in  strips  in  a 
great  bowl,  and  we  all  reached  out  for  the  vegetables. 
There  were  mammothine  bowls  of  mixed  salad  pos- 
sessing an  astonishing  (to  British  eyes)  lavishness  of 
hard-boiled  egg,  lemon  pie  (lemon  curd  pie)  with  a 
whipped-egg  crown,  deep  apple  pie  (the  logger  eats 
pie  —  which  many  people  will  know  better  as  "  tart  " 
—  three  times  a  day),  a  marvellous  fruit  salad  in 
jelly,  and  the  finest  selection  of  plums,  peaches, 
apples,  and  oranges  I  had  seen  for  a  long  day. 

I  was  told  that  this  was  the  regular  meal  of  the 


The  Pacific  Cities  237 

loggers,  and  I  know  it  was  cooked  by  a  chef  (there 
is  a  French  or  Belgian  or  Canadian  chef  in  most  log- 
ging camps),  for  I  talked  with  him.  To  live  in  a 
lonely  forest,  in  a  shack,  and  to  work  tremendously 
hard,  may  not  be  all  the  life  a  man  wants,  but  it  has 
compensations. 

I  understand  that  just  about  then  the  lumbermen 
were  prone  to  striking.  In  one  place  they  were  de- 
manding sheets,  and  in  another  they  had  refused  to 
work  because,  having  ordered  two  cases  of  eggs  from 
a  store,  the  tradesman  had  only  been  able  to  send  the 
one  he  had  in  stock. 

While  we  were  in  this  camp  we  had  some  ex- 
perience of  the  danger  of  forest  fires.  We  had 
walked  up  to  the  head  of  the  clearing,  when  one  of 
the  men  of  a  group  we  had  left  working  a  short  dis- 
tance behind,  came  running  up  to  say  a  fire  had 
started.  We  went  back,  and  in  a  place  where,  ten 
minutes  before,  there  had  been  no  sign  of  fire,  flames 
and  smoke  were  rising  over  an  area  of  about  one 
hundred  yards  square.  Little  tongues  of  flame  were 
racing  over  the  "  slashings  "  {i.e.,  the  debris  of  bark 
and  splintered  limbs  that  litter  an  area  which  has 
been  cut),  snakes  of  flame  were  writhing  up  standing 
trees,  sparks  blown  by  the  wind  were  dropping  into 
the  dry  "  slashings  "  twenty,  thirty  and  fifty  yards 
away  and  starting  fresh  fires.  We  could  see  with 
what  incredible  rapidity  these  fires  travelled,  and 
how  dangerous  they  can  be  once  they  are  well  alight. 
This  fire  was  surrounded,  and  got  under  with  water 
and  shovelled  earth,  but  we  were  shown  a  big  stretch 
of  hillside  which  another  such  fire  had  swept  bare  in 


238    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

a  little  under  two  hours.  The  summer  is  the  dan- 
gerous time,  for  "  slashings  "  and  forests  are  then 
dry,  and  one  chance  spark  from  a  badly  screened 
donkey-engine  chimney  will  start  a  blaze.  When  the 
fire  gets  into  wet  and  green  wood  it  soon  expires. 

These  drives,  for  us,  were  the  major  events  in  an 
off  time,  for  there  was  very  little  happening  until  the 
night  of  the  28th,  when  we  went  on  board  the 
Princess  Alice  again,  to  start  on  our  return  journey. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

APPLE   LAND:  OKANAGAN  AND  KOOTENAY  LAKES 


ON  Monday,  September  29th,  the  Prince  of 
Wales  returned  to  Vancouver  and  took  car 
to  New  Westminster,  the  old  capital  of  Brit- 
ish Columbia  before  picturesque  Victoria  assumed 
the  reins. 

New  Westminster  was  having  its  own  festival 
that  day,  so  the  visit  was  well  timed.  The  local  ex- 
hibition was  to  begin,  and  the  Prince  was  to  perform 
the  opening  ceremony.  Under  many  fine  arches,  one 
a  tall  toril,  erected  by  Chinese  and  Japanese  Cana- 
dians, the  procession  of  cars  passed  through  the 
town,  on  a  broad  avenue  that  runs  alongside  the 
great  Fraser  River.  Drawn  up  at  the  curb  were 
many  floats  that  were  to  take  part  in  the  trades'  pro- 
cession through  the  town  to  the  exhibition  grounds. 
Most  of  them  were  ingenious  and  attractive.  There 
were  telegraph  stations  on  wagons,  corn  dealers' 
shops,  and  the  like,  while  on  the  bonnet  of  one  car 
was  a  doll  nurse,  busy  beside  a  doll  bed.  Another 
automobile  had  turned  itself  Into  an  aeroplane, 
while  another  had  obliterated  itself  under  a  giant 
bully  beef  can  to  advertise  a  special  kind  of  tinned 
meat. 

All  cars  were  decorated  with  masses  of  spruce 

239 


240    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

and  maple  leaf,  now  beautiful  in  autumn  tints  of 
crimson  and  gold.  And  Peace  and  Britannia,  of 
course,  were  there  with  attendant  angels  and  nations, 
comely  girls  whose  celestial  and  symbolical  garments 
did  not  seem  to  be  the  right  fashion  for  a  day  with 
more  than  a  touch  of  chill  in  the  air. 

Through  this  avenue  of  fantasy,  colour  and  cheery 
humanity  the  Prince  drove  through  the  town,  which 
seems  to  have  the  air  of  brooding  over  its  past,  to 
the  exhibition  ground,  which  he  opened,  and  where 
he  presented  medals  to  many  soldiers. 


II 

From  New  Westminster  the  Royal  train  struck 
upward  through  the  Rocky  Mountains  by  way  of 
the  Kettle  Valley.  It  passed  through  a  land  of  ter- 
rific and  magnificent  scenery.  It  equalled  anything 
we  had  seen  in  the  more  famous  beauty  spots,  but  it 
was  more  savage.  The  valleys  appeared  closer  knit 
and  deeper,  and  the  sharp  and  steep  mountains 
pinched  the  railway  and  river  gorges  together  until 
we  seemed  to  be  creeping  along  the  floor  of  a  mighty 
passage-way  of  the  dark,  aboriginal  gods. 

Again  and  again  the  train  was  hanging  over  the 
deep,  misted  cauldron  of  the  valley,  again  and  again 
it  slipped  delicately  over  the  span  of  cobweb  across 
the  sky  that  is  a  Canadian  bridge.  In  this  land  of 
steep  gradients,  sharp  curves  and  lattice  bridges,  the 
train  was  divided  into  two  sections,  and  each,  with 
two  engines  to  pull  it,  climbed  through  the  mountain 
passes. 


Apple  Land  241 

This  tract  of  country  has  only  within  the  last  few 
years  been  tapped  by  a  railway  that  seems  even  yet 
to  have  to  fight  its  way  forward  against  Nature,  bar- 
barous, splendid  and  untamed.  It  was  built  to  the 
usual  ideal  of  Canada,  that  vision  which  ignores  the 
handicaps  of  today  for  the  promise  of  tomorrow. 
Yet  even  today  it  taps  the  rich  lake  valleys  where 
mining  and  general  farming  is  carried  on,  and  where 
there  are  miles  of  orchards  already  growing  some  of 
the  finest  apples  and  peaches  in  Canada. 

On  the  morning  of  Tuesday,  September  30th,  the 
train  climbed  down  from  the  higher  and  rougher 
levels  to  Penticton,  a  small,  bright,  growing  town 
that  stands  as  focus  for  the  immense  fruit-growing 
district  about  Okanagan  Lake. 

Here,  after  a  short  ceremony,  the  Prince  boarded 
the  steamer  Sicamous,  a  lake  boat  of  real  Canadian 
brand;  a  long  white  vessel  built  up  in  an  extraordi- 
nary number  of  tiers,  so  that  It  looked  like  an  elabo- 
rate wedding-cake,  but  a  useful  craft  whose  humpy 
stern  paddle-wheel  can  push  her  through  a  six-foot 
shallow  or  deep  water  with  equal  dispatch.  And  a 
delightfully  comfortable  boat  into  the  bargain,  with 
well-sheltered  and  spacious  decks,  cosy  cabins  and 
bath-rooms,  and  a  big  dining  saloon,  which,  placed 
in  the  very  centre  of  the  ship  with  the  various  gal- 
leries of  the  decks  rising  around  it,  has  an  air  of  be- 
longing to  one  of  those  attractive  old  Dickensian 
inns. 

On  this  vessel  the  Prince  was  carried  the  whole 
length  of  Okanagan  Lake,  which  winds  like  a  blue 
fillet  between  mountains  for  seventy  miles.     On  the 


242    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

ledges  and  in  the  tight  valleys  of  these  heights  he  saw 
the  formal  ranks  of  a  multitude  of  orchards. 

A  short  distance  along  the  lake  the  Sicamous 
pulled  in  to  the  toy  quay  of  Summerland,  a  town 
born  of  and  existing  for  fruit,  and  linked  up  with  the 
outer  world  by  the  C.P.R.  Lake  Service  that  owned 
our  own  vessel. 

All  the  children  of  Summerland  had  collected  on 
the  quayside  to  sing  to  and  to  cheer  the  Prince,  and, 
as  he  stood  on  the  upper  deck  and  waved  his  hat 
cheerfully  at  them,  they  cheered  a  good  deal  more. 
When  he  went  ashore  and  was  taken  by  the  grown-up 
Olympians  to  examine  the  grading  and  packing  sheds, 
where  the  fruits  of  all  the  orchards  are  handled  and 
graded  by  mechanical  means,  prepared  for  the 
market,  and  sold  on  the  co-operative  plan,  the  kiddies 
exchanged  sallies  with  those  waiting  on  the  vessel, 
flipped  big  apples  up  at  them,  and  cheered  or  jeered 
as  they  were  caught  or  missed. 

The  Sicamous  went  close  inshore  at  Peachland, 
another  daughter  town  of  Mother  Fruit,  to  salute 
the  crowd  of  people  who  had  come  out  from  the 
pretty  bungalow  houses  that  nestle  among  the  green 
trees  on  a  low  and  pretty  shore,  and  who  stood  on 
the  quay  in  a  mass  to  send  a  cheer  to  him. 

At  Okanagan  Landing,  at  the  end  of  the  lake,  he 
took  car  to  Vernon,  a  purposeful  and  attractive  town 
which  is  the  commercial  heart  of  the  apple  industry. 
Indeed,  there  was  no  need  to  ask  the  reason  for  Ver- 
non's being.  Even  the  decorations  were  wrought 
out  of  apples,  and  under  an  arch  of  bright,  cherry- 
red  apples  the  Prince  passed  on  to  the  sports  ground. 


Apple  Land  243 


and  on  to  a  platform  the  corner  posts  of  which  were 
crowned  with  pyramids  of  apples,  and  in  the  centre 
of  which  was  a  model  apple  large  enough  to  suit  the 
appetite  of  Gargantua. 

In  front  of  this  platform  was  a  grand  stand 
crowded  with  children  of  all  races  from  Scandinavian 
to  Oriental,  and  these  sang  with  the  resistless  hearti- 
ness of  Canada.  The  Oriental  is  a  pretty  useful 
asset  in  British  Columbia,  for  in  addition  to  his  gifts 
of  industry  he  is  an  excellent  agriculturist. 

After  the  ceremonies  the  Prince  had  an  orgy  of 
orchards. 

Fruit  growing  is  done  with  a  large  gesture.  The 
orchards  are  neat  and  young  and  huge.  In  a  run  of 
many  miles  the  Prince  passed  between  masses  of  pre- 
cisely aligned  trees,  and  every  tree  was  thick  with 
bright  and  gleaming  red  fruit.  Thick,  indeed,  is  a 
mild  word.  The  short  trees  seemed  practically  all 
fruit,  as  though  they  had  got  into  the  habit  of  grow- 
ing apples  instead  of  leaves.  Many  of  the  branches 
bore  so  excessive  a  burden  that  they  had  been  torn 
out  by  the  weight  of  the  fruit  upon  them. 

It  was  a  marvellous  pageant  of  fruit  in  mass. 
And  the  apples  themselves  were  of  splendid  quality, 
big  and  firm  and  glowing,  each  a  perfect  specimen  of 
its  school.  We  were  able  to  judge  because  the  land- 
girls,  after  tossing  aprons  full  of  specimens  (not  al- 
ways accurately)  into  the  Prince's  car,  had  enough 
ammunition  left  over  for  the  automobiles  that  fol- 
lowed. 

Attractive  land  girls  they  were,  too.  Not  garbed 
like  British  land-girls,  but  having  all  their  dashing 


244    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

qualities.  Being  Canadians  they  carried  the  love  of 
silk  stockings  on  to  the  land,  and  it  was  strange  to  see 
this  feminine  extremity  under  the  blue  hnen  overall 
trousers  or  knickers.  They  were  cheery,  sun-tanned, 
laughing  girls.  They  were  ready  for  the  Prince  at 
every  gate  and  every  orchard  fence,  eager  and  ready 
to  supplement  their  gay  enthusiasm  with  this  apple 
confetti. 

The  Prince  stopped  here  and  there  to  chat  with 
fruit  growers,  and  to  congratulate  them  on  their 
fine  showing.  Now  he  stopped  to  talk  to  a  wounded 
officer,  who  had  been  so  cruelly  used  in  the  war  that 
he  had  to  support  himself  on  two  sticks.  Now  he 
stopped  to  pass  a  "  How  d'y'  do  "  to  a  mob  of 
trousered  land-girls  who  gathered  brightly  about  his 
car,  showing  himself  as  laughing  and  as  cheerful  as 
they. 

The  cars  left  the  land  of  growing  apples  and 
turned  down  the  lake  in  a  superb  run  of  thirty-six 
miles  to  Kelowna.  This  road  skirts  fairyland.  It 
winds  high  up  on  a  shoulder  above  Long  Lake,  that 
makes  a  floor  of  living  azure  between  the  buttresses 
and  slopes  of  the  mountains.  Only  when  it  is  tired 
of  the  heights  does  it  drop  to  the  lake  level,  and 
sweeping  through  a  filigree  of  trees,  speeds  along  a 
road  that  is  but  an  inch  or  two  above  the  still  mirror 
of  Wood  Lake,  on  the  polished  surface  of  which 
there  is  a  delicate  fret  of  small,  rocky  islets.  So,  in 
magnificent  fashion,  he  came  to  Kelowna,  and  the 
Sicamous,  that  carried  him  back  to  the  train. 


Apple  haiid  245 


III 

Through  the  night  and  during  the  next  morning 
the  train  carried  the  Prince  deeper  in  the  mountains, 
skirting  in  amazing  loops,  when  the  train  seemed  al- 
most to  be  biting  its  tail,  steep  rocky  cliffs  above 
white  torrents,  or  the  shining  blue  surfaces  of  lakes 
such  as  Arrow  Lake,  that  formed  the  polished  floor 
of  valleys.  Now  and  then  we  passed  purposeful 
falls,  and  by  them  the  power  houses  that  won  light 
and  motive  force  for  the  valley  towns  from  the  Tail- 
ing water.  There  are  those  who  fear  the  harnessing 
of  water-power,  because  it  may  mean  the  spoiling  of 
beautiful  scenery.  Such  buildings  as  I  saw  in  no  way 
marred  the  view,  but  rather  added  to  it  a  touch  of 
human  picturesqueness. 

Creeping  down  the  levels,  with  discretion  at  the 
curves,  the  train  came  in  the  rain  to  Nelson  on  Wed- 
nesday, October  ist.  Rain  spoilt  the  reception  at 
Nelson,  a  town  that  thrives  upon  the  agricultural 
and  mining  products  of  the  hills  about.  There 
seemed  to  be  a  touch  of  mining  grey  in  the  air  of  the 
town,  but,  as  in  all  towns  of  Canada,  no  sense  of  un- 
happiness,  no  sense  of  poverty  — indeed,  in  the 
whole  of  Canada  I  saw  five  beggars  and  no  more 
( though,  of  course,  there  may  have  been  more ) .  Of 
these  one  man  was  blind,  and  two  were  badly  crippled 
soldiers. 

There  are  no  poor  in  Nelson,  so  I  was  told,  and  no 
unemployed. 

'*  If  a  man's  unemployed,"  said  a  Councillor  with 
a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  "  he's  due  for  the  penitentiary. 


246    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

With  labourers  getting  five  dollars  a  day,  and  being 
able  to  demand  it  because  of  the  scarcity  of  their 
kind,  when  a  man  who  says  he  can't  find  work  has 
something  wrong  with  him  ...  as  a  matter  of  fact 
the  penitentiary  idea  is  only  speculative.  There's 
never  been  a  test  case  of  this  kind." 

I  don't  suppose  there  have  been  many  test  cases  of 
that  kind  in  the  whole  of  Canada,  for  certainly  "  the 
everyday  people  "  everywhere  have  a  cheerful  and 
self-dependent  look. 

At  Nelson  the  Prince  embarked  on  another  lake 
boat,  the  Nasookin,  after  congratulating  rival  bands, 
one  of  brass,  and  one  (mainly  boys)  of  bagpipes,  on 
their  tenacity  in  tune  in  the  rain.  Nelson  gave  him 
a  very  jolly  send-off.  The  people  managed  to  in- 
vade the  quay  in  great  numbers,  and  those  who 
were  daring  clambered  to  the  top  of  the  freight 
cars  standing  on  the  wharf,  the  better  to  give  him  a 
cheer. 

As  the  boat  steamed  out  into  the  Kootenay  River 
scores  of  the  nattiest  little  gasoline  launches  flying 
flags  escorted  him  for  the  first  mile  or  so,  chugging 
along  beside  the  Nasookin,  or  falling  in  our  wake  in 
a  bright  procession  of  boats.  Encouraged  by  the 
"  movie  "  men  they  waved  vigorously,  and  many 
good  "  shoots  "  of  them  were  filmed. 

At  Balfour,  where  the  narrow  river,  after  passing 
many  homesteads  of  great  charm  nestling  amid  the 
greenery  of  the  low  shore  that  fringes  the  high  moun- 
tains, turns  into  Kootenay  Lake,  the  Prince  went 
ashore.  Here  is  a  delightful  chalet  which  was  once 
an  hotel,  but   is   now   a   sanatorium   for   Canadian 


Apple  Land  247 


soldiers.  Its  position  is  idyllic.  It  stands  above 
river  and  lake,  with  the  fine  mountains  backing  it, 
and  across  the  river  are  high  mountains. 

Over  these  great  slopes  on  this  grey  day  clouds 
were  gathered,  crawling  down  the  shoulders  in  bil- 
lows, or  blowing  in  odd  and  disconnected  masses 
and  streamers.  These  odd  ragged  scarves  and  bil- 
lows look  like  strayed  sheep  from  the  cloud  fold, 
lost  in  the  deep  valleys  that  sit  between  the  blue-grey 
mountain  sides. 

The  Prince  spent  some  time  visiting  the  sanator- 
ium, and  chatting  with  the  inmates,  and  then  played 
golf  on  the  course  here.  The  C.P.R.  were,  mean- 
while, indulging  themselves  in  one  of  their  habitual 
feats.  The  lakes  make  a  gap  in  the  line  between 
Nelson,  or  rather  Balfour  siding,  and  Kootenay 
Landing  at  the  head  of  the  water.  Over  this  water- 
jump  the  whole  train,  solid  steel  and  weighing  a 
thousand  tons,  was  bodily  carried. 

Two  great  barges  were  used.  The  long  cars  were 
backed  on  to  these  with  delicate  skill  —  for  the  slight- 
est waywardness  of  a  heavy,  all-steel  car  on  a  float- 
ing barge  is  a  matter  of  danger,  and  each  loaded 
barge  was  then  taken  up  the  lake  by  a  tug  grappled 
alongside. 

At  Kootenay  Landing  the  delicate  process  was  re- 
versed, and  all  was  carried  out  without  mishap 
though  it  was  a  dark  night,  and  the  railwaymen  had 
to  work  with  the  aid  of  searchlights.  Kootenay 
Landing  is,  in  itself,  something  of  a  wonder.  In  the 
dark,  as  we  waited  for  the  train  to  be  made  up,  it 
seemed  as  solid  as  good  hard  land  can  make  it.     But 


248    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

as  the  big  Canadian  engine  came  up  with  the  first  car 
we  felt  our  "  earth  "  sway  slightly,  and  in  the  beam 
of  the  big  headhght  we  saw  the  reason.  Kootenay 
Landing  is  a  station  in  the  air.  It  is  built  up  on 
piles. 


Ill 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE    PRAIRIES   AGAIN 


IN  cold  weather  and  through  a  snowfall  that  had 
powdered  the  slopes  and  foothills  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  the  Prince,  on  Thursday,  October 
2nd,  reached  the  prairies  again.  Now  he  was  travel- 
ling well  to  the  south  of  his  former  journey  on  a  line 
that  ran  just  above  the  American  border. 

In  this  bleak  and  rolling  land  he  was  to  call  in  the 
next  two  days  at  a  series  of  small  towns  whose  very 
names  —  McLeod,  Lethbridge,  Medicine  Hat, 
Maple  Creek,  Swift  Current,  Moose  Jaw  and 
Regina  —  had  in  them  a  savour  of  the  old,  brave 
days  when  the  Red  Man  was  still  a  power,  and  set- 
tlers chose  their  names  off-hand  from  local  things. 

McLeod,  on  the  Old  Man  River,  just  escapes  the 
foothills.  It  is  prairies,  a  few  streets,  a  movie 
"  joint,"  an  hotel  and  a  golf  course.  In  McLeod  we 
saw  the  dawn  of  the  Mackinaw,  or  anyhow  first  saw 
the  virtues  of  that  strange  coat  which  seems  to  have 
been  adapted  from  the  original  of  the  Biblical  Joseph 
by  a  Highland  tailor.  It  is  a  thick,  frieze  garment, 
cut  in  Norfolk  style.  The  colour  is  heroic  red,  or 
blue  or  mauve  or  cinnamon,  over  which  black  lines 
are  laid  in  a  plaid  tracery. 

We  realized  its  value  as  a  warmth-giver  while  we 

249 


250    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

stood  amid  a  crowd  of  them  as  the  Prince  received 
addresses.  Among  the  crowd  was  a  band  of  Blood 
Indians  of  the  Blackfeet  Tribe,  whose  complexions 
in  the  cold  looked  blue  under  their  habitual  brown- 
red.  They  had  come  to  lay  their  homage  before 
him  and  to  present  an  Indian  robe.  The  Prince 
shook  hands  and  chatted  with  the  chiefs  as  well  as 
their  squaws,  and  with  the  missionary  who  had  spent 
his  life  among  these  Red  Men,  and  had  succeeded  in 
mastering  the  four  or  five  sounds  that  make  up  the 
Indian  language. 

We  talked  to  an  old  chief  upon  whose  breast  were 
the  large  silver  medals  that  Queen  Victoria  and  King 
George  had  had  specially  struck  for  their  Indian  sub- 
jects. These  have  become  signs  of  chieftainship, 
and  are  taken  over  by  the  new  chief  when  he  is 
elected  by  the  tribesmen.  With  this  chief  was  his 
son,  a  fine,  quiet  fellow  in  the  costume  of  the  present 
generation  of  Indians,  the  cowboy  suit.  He  had 
served  all  through  the  war  in  a  Canadian  regiment. 

At  Lethbridge,  the  next  town,  there  was  a  real  and 
full  Indian  ceremonial.  Before  a  line  of  tepees,  or 
Indian  lodges,  the  Prince  was  received  by  the  Chiefs 
of  the  Blood  Tribe  of  the  Blackfeet  Nation,  and 
elected  one  of  them  with  the  name  of  Mekastro, 
that  is  Red  Crow. 

This  name  is  a  redoubtable  one  in  the  annals  of 
the  Blackfeet.  It  has  been  held  by  their  most 
famous  chieftains  and  has  been  handed  down  from 
generation  to  generation.  It  was  a  Chief  Red  Crow 
who  signed  the  Wolseley  Treaty  in  '77.  Upon  his 
election  the  Prince  was  presented  with  an  historic 


The  Prairies  Again  251 

headdress  of  feathers  and  horns,  a  beautiful  thing 
that  had  been  worn  by  the  great  fighting  leaders  of 
the  race. 

There  were  gathered  about  the  Prince  in  front  of 
these  tall,  painted  tepees  many  chiefs  of  strange,  odd- 
sounding  names.  One  of  these  immobile  and  aqui- 
line men  was  Chief  Shot  on  Both  Sides,  another  Chief 
Weasel  Fat,  another  Chief  One  Spot,  another  Chief 
Many  White  Horses.  They  had  a  dignity  and  an 
unyielding  calm,  and  if  some  of  them  wore  befeath- 
ered  bowler  hats,  instead  of  the  sunray  feathered 
headdress,  it  did  not  detract  from  their  high  auster- 
it}\  Chief  One  Spot — "he  whose  voice  can  be 
heard  three  miles  " —  was  a  splendid  and  upright 
old  warrior  of  eighty;  he  had  not  only  been  present 
at  the  historic  treaty  of  '77,  but  had  been  one  of 
the  signatories. 

The  Prince  chatted  with  these  chiefs,  while  the 
Lethbridge  people,  who  had  shown  extraordinary 
heartiness  since  the  public  welcome  in  the  chief 
square  of  the  town,  crowded  close  around.  While 
he  was  talking,  the  Prince  asked  if  he  could  be  shown 
the  interior  of  one  of  the  wig^vams,  and  his  brother, 
Chief  Weasel  Fat,  took  him  to  his  own,  over  the  door 
of  which  was  painted  rudely  the  emblem  of  the  bald- 
headed  eagle. 

The  wigwam  is  a  fine  airy  home.  Its  canvas  walls 
are  supported  by  tall,  leaning  poles  bound  at  the  top. 
There  is  no  need  of  a  centre  pole,  and  a  wood  fire 
burning  on  a  circular  hearth  sent  up  a  coil  of  smoke 
through  the  opening  at  the  top  of  the  poles. 

The  floor  was  strewn  with  bright  soft  rugs,  on 


252    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

which  squaws  in  vivid  red  robes  were  sitting,  listening 
to  all  that  was  said  with  impassive  faces.  The  walls 
were  decorated  with  strips  of  warm  cloth  upon  which 
had  been  sewn  Indian  figures  and  animals.  The 
wide  floor  space  also  held  a  rattanwork  bed,  musical 
instruments  and  the  like;  certainly  it  was  a  more 
comfortable  and  commodious  place  than  its  bell-tent 
shape  would  suggest. 

Leaving  the  exhibition  grounds,  on  which  the  en- 
campment stood,  the  Prince  passed  under  an  arch 
made  of  Indian  clothes  of  white  antelope  skin,  beads 
and  feathers,  and  after  reviewing  the  war  veterans, 
went  to  the  town  ball  that  had  been  arranged  in  his 
honour. 

Lethbridge  is  a  mixture  of  the  plain  and  the  pit. 
It  is  a  great  grain  centre,  and  there  is  no  mistaking 
its  prairie  air,  yet  superimposed  upon  this  is  the  at- 
mosphere of,  say,  a  Lancashire  or  Yorkshire  mining 
*  town.  Coal  and  other  mines  touch  with  a  sense  of 
dark  industrial  bustle  the  easy  air  of  the  plain  town. 
It  is  a  Labour  town,  and  a  force  in  Labour  politics. 
That,  of  course,  made  not  the  slightest  difference  to 
its  welcome;  indeed,  perhaps  it  tinged  that  greeting 
with  a  touch  of  independent  heartiness  that  made  it 
notable. 

As  a  town  it  impresses  with  its  vividity  at  once. 
That,  indeed,  is  the  quality  of  most  Canadian  cities. 
They  capture  one  with  their  air  of  modernity  and 
vivacity  at  first  impact.  True,  one  sometimes  finds 
that  the  town  that  seemed  great  and  bustling  dwin- 
dles after  a  few  fine  streets  into  suburbs  of  dirt  road- 
ways, but  one  has  been  impressed.     It  may  be  very 


The  Frames  Again  253 

^  good  window  dressing,  though,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
is  probably  good  planning  which  concentrates  all  the 
activity  and  interests  of  the  town  in  the  decisively 
main  avenues. 

II 

Friday,  October  3rd,  saw  the  Prince  visiting  a 
string  of  three  towns. 

Medicine  Hat  was  the  first  of  these,  an  attractive, 
park-like  place  full  of  "  pep."  Medicine  Hat's 
claim  to  fame  beyond  its  name  lies  in  the  fact  that, 
having  discovered  that  it  was  sitting  upon  a  vast  sub- 
terranean reservoir  of  natural  gas,  it  promptly  har- 
nessed it  to  its  own  use.  Now,  that  elemental  thing 
is  in  the  control  of  humanity,  and  heats  the  town,  and 
tamely  drives  the  wheels  of  industry. 

The  outstanding  ceremony  was  the  way  little  boys 
suddenly  took  fright  on  a  roof.  In  the  middle  of 
the  town,  beside  the  street,  is  a  tall,  thin  standpipe, 
and  this  standpipe  was  to  demonstrate  a  "  shoot  off  " 
of  the  gas.  Scores  of  small  boys  climbed  on  to  the 
roofs  of  neighbouring  sheds  to  see  the  fun.  First 
there  was  a  meek,  submissive  flame  burning  at  the  top 
of  the  pipe,  and  looking  weak  in  the  fine  sunlight. 
Then,  abruptly,  the  flame  shot  up  a  hundred  feet, 
and  there  was  a  loud  roaring.  Not  only  was  the 
roaring  a  terrifying  thing,  but  the  force  of  that  rush 
of  gas  made  the  ground,  the  roof  and  the  little  boys 
tremble.  Little  boys  came  off  that  roof  in  record 
time,  and  with  such  a  clatter  that  the  effort  of  the 
standpipe  almost  lost  its  place  as  a  star  turn.  This 
tremendous  pressure  is  not  habitual;  it  is,  I  believe, 


254    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

obtained  by  bursting  a  charge  in  one  of  the  gas  wells. 

The  Prince  also  saw  the  uses  to  which  the  gas  was 
put  in  a  big  pottery  mill.  The  kilns  here  were  an  in- 
candescent mass  of  fire,  the  work  of  the  easily  con- 
trolled gas  that  does  the  work  with  a  tithe  of  the 
labour  and  at  a  mere  fraction  of  the  cost  necessitated 
by  ordinary  baking  kilns. 

Maple  Creek  and  Swift  Current  were  stepping- 
off  places,  with  all  their  populations  packed  in  the 
square  about  the  station  to  give  the  Prince  a  hearty 
greeting.  At  Maple  Creek  the  pretty  daughters  of 
the  township  were  very  much  in  evidence,  and  held 
His  Royal  Highness  up  with  autograph  albums. 

Moose  Jaw,  one  of  the  few  towns  where  a  quaint 
name  is  traceable,  for  it  is  the  creek  where  the  white 
man  mended  the  cart  with  a  moose  jaw-bone,  which 
the  Prince  reached  on  the  morning  of  October  4th, 
is  a  bigger  town  and  proud  of  its  position  as  a  grain, 
food  and  machinery  distributing  centre  for  Southern 
Saskatchewan.  In  its  station  courtyard  it  had  built 
up  an  admirable  exhibit  of  its  vegetables  and  fruit, 
its  sides  of  bacon,  its  grain  in  ear,  its  porridge  oats 
in  packets,  and  its  butter  and  cream  in  drums  and 
churns;  while  chiefest  of  all  it  showed  ramparts  of 
some  of  the  two  million  sacks  of  flour  it  handles  an- 
nually. The  whole  of  the  exhibit  was  set  in  a  moat 
of  grain  and  potatoes. 

The  Prince  went  to  the  University  Grounds,  where 
a  mighty  crowd  attended  the  welcoming  ceremony, 
and  where  a  wild  and  timeless  waltz-quadrille  of 
motors  which  straggled  all-whither  over  the  grounds, 
marked  the  attempts  of  people  to  locate  and  follow 


The  Frames  Again  255 

him  when  he  drove  away  to  the  hospital  and  a  big 
packing  factory.  At  the  packing  plant  he  saw  the 
whole  process  of  handling  meat,  from  the  moment 
when  cowboys  in  chaps  drove  the  herd  to  the  pens  to 
the  final  jointing  of  the  steer. 

From  Moose  Jaw  he  went  to  Regina,  which  he 
reached  that  afternoon.  Regina  is  the  capital  of 
Saskatchewan,  but  an  accidental  capital.  Somewhere 
about  1880  it  was  decided  to  start  itself  in  quite  an- 
other place.  Qu'Appelle,  where  there  was  a  Hudson 
Bay  Fort  and  the  country  was  attractive,  was  the 
site  chosen.  And  Qu'Appelle  opened  its  mouth  too 
wide  —  or,  anyhow  so  the  version  of  the  story  I  was 
told  goes.  The  land-owners  there  asked  an  outside 
number  of  million  dollars,  and  the  townplanners 
went  to  Pile  o'  Bones  instead. 

Pile  o'  Bones  was  a  point  near  Wascana  Lake 
where  there  had  been  a  big  slaughter  of  buffaloes. 
It  was  a  point  of  no  importance,  but  Canadians  don't 
mind  that  sort  of  thing.  When  they  make  up  their 
minds  to  build  a  city,  a  city  arises.  Regina  arose, 
broad  and  bustling,  a  trifle  chilly  as  becomes  a  city 
of  the  prairie,  rather  flat  and  not  altogether  attrac- 
tive, yet  purposeful. 

It  also  gained  another  reason  for  regard  by  be- 
coming the  headquarters  of  the  "  Mounties,"  the 
Royal  North-West  Mounted  Police,  whose  main  bar- 
racks are  here.  We  saw  something  of  the  discipline 
of  that  line  service  in  the  way  the  big  crowds  were 
handled,  for  the  Prince  drove  through  the  streets  in 
the  order  and  state  of  a  London  or  New  York  pag- 
eant. 


256    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

The  Parliament  Buildings  are  beautifully  situated 
before  a  wide  stretch  of  water.  They  are  the  semi- 
classical,  domed,  white  stone  buildings  of  the  design 
of  those  at  Edmonton  and  other  cities  —  a  sort  of 
standardized  parliament  building  in  fact.  Before 
them,  on  the  terraces  and  lawn  that  shelved  down 
to  the  water,  the  big  throng  made  a  scene  of  quick 
beauty.  There  were  ranks  of  pretty  nurses,  rank 
upon  rank  of  khaki  veterans,  battahons  of  boy  scouts 
mainly  divorced  from  hats  which  were  perpetually 
aloft  on  upraised  and  enthusiastic  poles,  aisles  of  sit- 
ting wounded  whom  the  Prince  shook  hands  with, 
and  thick,  supporting  masses  of  civilians.  Lining 
this  throng  were  unbending  fillets  of  scarlet  statues, 
the  '*  Mounties  "  of  the  guard.  And  humanizing 
the  whole  were  solid  banks  of  school-children  who 
sang  and  cheered  at  the  right  as  well  as  the  wrong 
moment. 

The  presentation  of  medals  —  one  to  a  blinded 
doctor,  who,  led  by  a  comrade,  received  the  most 
poignant  storm  of  cheers  I  have  ever  heard  in  my  life 
—  and  a  giant  public  reception  finished  that  day's 
ceremonies.  Sunday,  October  5th,  was  a  day  of  rest, 
and  Monday  was  the  day  of  the  "  Mounties." 

The  Prince  showed  a  particular  interest  in  his 
visit  to  the  Headquarters  of  this  splendid  and  ro- 
mantic corps.  The  Royal  North-West  Mounted 
Police  is  a  classic  figure  in  the  history  of  the  Empire. 
The  day  is  now  past  when  the  lonely  red  rider  of  the 
wilds  stood  for  the  only  token  of  awe  and  authority 
among  Indian  tribes  and  "  bad  men  "  camps,  but 
though  that  may  be  there  are  no  more  useful  fellows 


The  Prairies  Again  257 

than  these  smart  and  sturdy  men,  who,  scarlet-coated, 
and  with  their  Stetsons  at  a  daring  angle,  add  a  dash 
of  colour  and  bravery  to  the  streets  of  Western 
Canada. 

In  his  inspection  the  Prince  saw  the  reason  why  the 
physique  of  the  men  should  be  so  splendid  and  their 
nerve  so  sure.  The  training  of  the  R.N.W.M.P. 
makes  no  appeal  to  the  weakling  of  spirit  or  flesh. 
He  saw  their  firm  discipline.  He  saw  them  breaking 
in  the  bucking  bronchos  they  had  to  ride.  He  saw 
them  go  through  exhausting  mounted  tests.  His 
congratulations  on  their  wonderful  show  were  ex- 
pressed with  great  warmth. 

Ill 

From  Regina  the  Prince  took  a  holiday.  He  went 
up  to  the  sporting  country  near  Qu'Appelle  for  duck 
and  game  shooting,  spending  from  Monday,  Octo- 
ber 6th,  until  Friday,  October  loth,  there.  This 
district  abounds  in  duck,  and  the  Prince  and  his  staff 
had  very  fair  sport.  During  his  stay  the  weather 
suddenly  turned  colder,  the  rivers  froze  over  and 
snow  fell.  So  sudden  was  the  cold  snap  that  one  of 
those  with  the  Prince  was  caught  napping.  He  woke 
up  to  find  that  his  false  teeth  were  frozen  into  the 
solid  block  of  ice  that  had  been  water  the  night  be- 
fore. He  had  to  take  the  tooth  glass  to  the  kitchen 
of  the  house  where  he  was  staying,  and  thaw  it 
before  he  could  even  articulate  his  emotions  ade- 
quately. 

Riding  in  a  fast  car  from  the  scene  of  the  sport  to 
the  station  gave  the  Prince  an  indication  of  what 


258    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

winter  would  be  like  in  the  prairies,  where  the  wind 
from  the  north  sweeps  down  unresisted,  and  with 
such  a  force  that  it  seems  to  go  right  through  all 
coats,  save  the  Canadian  winter  armour  of  "  coon 
coat  "  or  fur. 

Brandon  and  Portage  la  Prairie,  two  determined 
little  towns,  gave  the  Prince  a  snow  welcome.  The 
weather  kept  neither  grown-ups  nor  children  away 
from  the  liveliest  of  greetings.  They  were  attrac- 
tive halts  in  a  run  that  took  the  Prince  to  Winnipeg. 

In  Winnipeg  we  appreciated  the  virtues  of  central 
heating,  for  the  wind  made  the  whole  universe  extra- 
ordinarily cold.  Up  to  this  I  had  considered  central 
heating  a  stuffy  subject,  and  I  am  yet  not  fully  con- 
verted, for  though  there  are  those  who  say  it  can  be 
controlled  quite  easily,  I  have  yet  to  meet  the  super- 
man who  can  do  it. 

All  the  same,  steam  heating  has  its  virtues.  On 
those  cold  days  in  Winnipeg  we  lived  in  a  world  that 
knew  not  draughts.  It  was  almost  a  solemn  joy  to 
sit  in  a  bath,  and  to  feel  that  though  half  of  one  was 
in  hot  water,  the  other  half  was  also  comfortable  and 
not  the  prey  of  every  devilish  current  of  icy  air  such 
as  sports  itself  in  those  damp  refrigerators,  the 
British  bathrooms.  Naturally,  sinc-^  we  are  staying 
in  a  Canadian  hotel  of  the  up-to-date  kind,  a  bath- 
room was  attached  to  our  bedroom  as  a  mere  matter 
of  course.  But  if  we  had  had  to  wander  Anglicanly 
along  corridors  in  search  of  a  bathroom  we  should 
still  have  been  draught  free,  for  central  heating  deals 
with  corridors,  and  stairways,  and  halls  and  lounges 
with  one  universal  gesture. 


The  Prairies  Again  259 

Not  merely  in  so  fine  an  hotel  as  the  "  Royal  Alex- 
andra," but  in  the  private  houses  and  the  "  apart- 
ments "  (English  — "  flats  ") ,  central  heat  and  good 
bathrooms  are  items  of  everyday  —  though  many 
Canadians  burn  an  open  fire  in  their  sitting-rooms  for 
the  comfortable  look  it  gives. 

These  things  are  not  merely  for  comfort,  but  they 
are,  with  the  hardwood  floors,  the  mail  chutes  in 
"  apartment  "  houses  and  the  rest,  part  of  the  great 
science  of  labour-saving,  which  the  whole  of  America 
practises. 

One  realizes  the  need  of  labour-saving  when  one 
sees  in  a  theatre  vestibule  the  following  notice: 

"  ALL  CHILDREN  NOT  LEFT  WITH  THE 
MATRON  MUST  BE  PAID  FOR  " 

As  nurses  are  rare,  and  servants  are  rare,  the 
Americans  have  to  organize  themselves  to  simplify 
the  task  of  housekeeping. 

The  "  apartments  "  are  compact  and  neat,  ar- 
ranged for  easy  handling.  The  rents  are  not  cheap. 
One  very  pleasant  little  "  apartment,"  "  hired  "  by  a 
newly-married  couple,  was  made  up  of  three  rooms, 
a  kitchen  and  a  balcony.  It  was  in  the  suburbs. 
The  rent  was  thirty-five  dollars  a  month,  say  eighty- 
four  pounds  a  year,  for  a  flat,  which,  under  the  same 
conditions  (rates  included)  could  be  obtained  for 
thirty-five  pounds  a  year  in  England  in  pre-war  days. 
For  this,  however,  central  heating  and  perpetual  hot 
water  are  included.  My  friend  told  me  that  his 
electric  light  bill  came  to  three  dollars  a  month,  and 


26o    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

his  gas  bill  (for  cooking)  to  rather  less  than  that. 
In  Calgary  a  friend  of  mine  had  a  pretty  "  apart- 
ment "  even  smaller  in  a  suburban  district,  was  pay- 
ing about  ninety-six  pounds  a  year  over  all,  i.e.,  rent, 
light  and  gas  (central  heating  being  Included). 
Most  of  these  "  apartments  "  have  an  ice  house 
(refrigerator)  attached,  blocks  of  ice  being  left  on 
the  doorstep  every  morning,  just  as  the  milk  is  left. 

Winnipeg  is  an  attractive  town  to  live  in.  It  has 
plenty  of  amusements,  including  several  good  thea- 
tres and  music  halls  —  fed,  of  course,  mainly  from 
American  sources.  Mrs.  Walker,  whose  husband 
owns  the  Walker  Theatre,  told  me  that  Laurence 
Irving  and  his  wife  acted  on  their  stage  just  before 
sailing  on  the  ill-fated  Empress  of  Ireland.  She 
went  up  to  his  dressing-room  to  say  "  Good-bye  "  to 
him,  the  night  before  he  left,  and  in  answer  to  her 
knock  he  suddenly  appeared  before  her,  dressed  in 
black  from  head  to  foot,  for  the  character  he  was 
playing  that  night.  His  appearance  filled  her  with 
dread  —  it  seemed  to  her,  as  she  looked  at  him,  that 
something  terrible  was  to  happen.  Both  Laurence 
Irving  and  his  wife  were,  however,  in  excellent 
spirits.  Canada  treated  them  royally,  and  they 
were  going  back  home  full  of  optimism,  confident 
that  the  play  that  Laurence  Irving  was  then  finishing 
—  one  dealing  with  Napoleon  —  was  to  prove  the 
greatest  success  of  their  careers. 

We  met  at  Winnipeg,  also,  a  number  of  the  bril- 
liant men  and  women  journalists  whose  energy  and 
brains  are  responsible  for  the  many  fine  papers  that 
focus  in  this  city.     We  had  met  such  companions  of 


Tlie  Prairies  Agaiji  261 

our  own  dispensation  in  other  cities,  in  Ottawa,  Van- 
couver, Montreal,  Toronto  and  Quebec.  They  were 
not  merely  keen  and  accomplished  craftsmen,  but 
their  hospitality  to  us  was  always  of  the  most  de- 
lightful generosity. 

The  Prince's  visit  to  Winnipeg  was  undertaken  to 
give  him  the  opportunity  of  saying  au  revoir  to  the 
West.  At  the  vivid  luncheon  he  gave  in  the  attrac- 
tive Alexandra  Hotel  to  all  the  leaders  of  the  West, 
men  and  women,  he  insisted  that  it  was  au  revoir, 
and  that  so  well  had  the  West  treated  him,  so  at- 
tractive was  its  atmosphere,  that  he  meant  not  merely 
to  return,  but  to  become  something  of  a  rancher  here 
in  the  "  little  place  "  he  had  bought  in  Alberta.  He 
spoke  of  the  splendid  spirit  of  the  West,  and  the 
magnificent  future  that  was  the  West's  for  the  grasp- 
ing, and  he  left  on  all  those  who  heard  him  an  im- 
pression of  genuine  affection  for  the  people  and  the 
land  with  which  his  journey  had  brought  him  in  con- 
tact. 

He  himself  left  the  West  a  "  real  scout."  It  is  a 
mere  truism  to  say  that  his  personality  had  con- 
quered the  West,  as  it  had  won  for  him  affection 
everywhere.  His  straightforward  masculinity  and 
his  entire  lack  of  side,  his  cheerfulness  and  his  keen- 
ness, his  freedom  from  "  frills,"  as  one  man  put  it, 
had  made  him  the  friend  of  everybody.  I  heard 
practically  the  same  expressions  of  real  affection 
from  all  grades,  from  Chief  Justice  to  car  conductors. 
I  heard,  I  think,  but  one  man  pooh-pooh,  not  so 
much  this  universal  regard  for  the  Prince,  as  a  uni- 
versal enthusiasm  for  something  royal.     A  labour- 


262    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

leader,  who  happened  to  be  present,  administered 
correction : 

"  That  chap's  all  right,"  he  insisted,  and  his  word 
carried  weight.  "  I  saw  him  in  France,  and  there's 
not  much  that  is  wrong  with  him.  If  you're  as  demo- 
cratic as  he  is,  then  you're  all  right." 

The  brightest  of  dances,  a  game  of  squash  rackets, 
and  the  Prince  left,  undaunted  by  the  snow,  for 
week-end  shooting.  On  Tuesday,  October  14th,  he 
was  in  the  train  again,  travelling  East,  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Cobalt  mining  country,  buoyed  up  by  the 
prophecy  of  the  local  weather-wise  that  the  cold  snap 
would  not  endure,  but  would  be  followed  by  the  de- 
lightfully keen  yet  warm  weather  of  the  "  Indian 
Summer."  The  local  weather-wise  were  right,  but 
it  took  time. 


CHAPTER  XX 

SILVER,    GOLD   AND   COMMERCE 


COBALT  is  a  fantasy  town.  It  Is  a  Rackham 
drawing  with  all  its  little  grey  houses 
perched  up  on  queer  shelves  and  masses  of 
greeny-grey  rock.  Its  streets  are  whimsical.  They 
wander  up  and  down  levels,  and  in  and  out  of  houses, 
and  sometimes  they  are  roads  and  sometimes  they 
are  stairs.  One  glance  at  them  and  I  began  to  re- 
peat, "  There  was  a  crooked  man,  who  walked  a 
crooked  mile."  A  delightful  genius  had  done  the 
town  to  illustrate  that  rhyme. 

And  the  rope  railways  that  sent  a  procession  of 
emotionless  buckets  across  the  train  when  we  pulled 
in,  the  greeny-grey  lake  that  presently  (inside  the 
town)  ceased  being  a  lake  and  became  a  big  lake 
basin  of  smooth,  greeny-grey  mine  slime,  the  vast 
greeny-grey  mounds  of  mill  refuse,  the  fantastic 
spiderlness  of  the  lattice  mill  workings,  and  humped 
corrugated  iron  sheds,  all  of  them  slightly  greeny- 
grey  in  the  prevailing  fashion  —  the  whole  picture 
was  fantastic;  indeed.  Cobalt  appears  a  city  of 
gnomes. 

We  had  travelled  all  Tuesday  and  Wednesday, 
striking  east  from  Winnipeg,  only  stopping  occasion- 
ally for  the  Prince  to  return  the  courtesies  of  the 

26^ 


264    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

crowds  that  had  collected  at  wayside  stations,  and, 
on  one  occasion,  to  allow  the  Prince  to  obtain  a  walk. 
At  North  Bay  we  had  left  the  C.P.R.  main  line,  and 
pushed  up  the  road  of  the  Timiskaming  Railway 
towards  the  silver  mining  town  of  Cobalt  and  the 
gold  mining  town  of  Timmins. 

During  the  night  and  morning  of  Thursday,  Oc- 
tober 1 6th,  we  had  pushed  up  through  a  rocky  and 
inhospitable  country,  where  many  lakes  lie  coldly 
amid  stony  hillocks  that  thrust  up  through  live  green 
spruce,  or  the  white  ghosts  of  spruce  murdered  by 
fires. 

It  seems  a  country  fore-ordained  to  loneliness,  and 
it  is  hard  to  believe  that  a  rich  town  has  arisen  in  it. 
As  a  matter  of  truth,  that  town  would  not  have  been 
born  to  it  but  for  an  accident.  Cobalt  was  not 
dreamed  of  as  a  city.  The  intention  af  the  railway 
engineers  had  been  to  drive  a  line  through  this  land 
to  open  up  good  farming  country  to  the  north  of 
Cobalt  Lake.  Only  this  accident  brought  Cobalt 
into  being  at  all. 

Two  bored  contractors  employed  on  the  construc- 
tion of  the  railways  are  responsible  for  it.  They 
were  filling  out  an  idle  hour  in  throwing  pebbles  into 
the  lake;  one  of  them  noticed  that  the  pebbles  had  a 
queer  texture.  Both  men  examined  them,  for  many 
of  the  kind  were  scattered  about. 

"  Lead,"  decided  one  of  the  men,  but  the  other 
gave  his  opinion  for  silver.  He  had  the  strange 
pebble  analysed,  and  silver  it  was.  On  the  wave  of 
excitement  that  followed,  Cobalt  was  born. 

As  the  Prince  saw  it  on  October  i6th  it  was  ob- 


Silver,  Gold  and  Commerce      265 

viously  a  mining  town,  careless  of  how  it  built  itself 
as  long  as  it  could  get  at  the  rich  stopes,  or  veins,  that 
burrow  amid  the  calcite  rock  of  the  district.  It  is 
this  indifference  to  planning  that  makes  the  town  fan- 
tastic, though  there  is  something  of  the  fantastic  in 
the  character  of  its  people  and  the  welcome  they 
gave. 

Above  the  heads  of  the  very  generous  and  homely 
throng  that  welcomed  the  Prince,  the  streets  were 
strung  from  side  to  side  with  banners  of  welcome, 
many  of  them  touched  with  native  humour. 

"  GLAD  U  COME  " 

declared  one,  while  another  offered  the  "  glad  hand  " 
with  the  injunction: 

"  THE  TOWN  IS  YOURS:  PAINT  IT  RED  OR 
ANY  OLD  COLOUR  YOU  LIKE  " 

After  a  corrugated  drive  along  the  switchback 
streets,  the  miners  had  their  own  individual  welcome 
for  him.  At  the  Coniagas  Mine  these  stocky  men, 
in  brown  overalls,  the  acetylene  lamps  that  lighted 
them  through  the  underworld  still  alight  on  the  front 
of  their  hats,  were  gathered  about  the  pit-head  work- 
ings, and  they  gave  him  a  particular  cheer. 

The  Prince  was  shown  through  the  whole  of  the 
above-ground  workings  in  this  mine.  He  went  into 
the  breaking  and  stamping  rooms,  where  he  could 
not  hear  himself  speak  for  the  crashings  of  the  mills 
that  broke  up  the  quartz;  he  saw  the  machines  that 


266    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

washed  the  silver  free  from  the  living  rock  by  jigging 
it  over  metal  shelves  across  which  flowed  a  constant 
film  of  water;  he  saw  the  pulverized  slime  being 
treated  with  oil  and  pouring  bubbling  from  big  vats 
through  wooden  chutes. 

He  climbed  to  the  top  of  one  of  the  big  mounds  of 
dried  slime  that  pile  up  round  the  workings.  In  the 
old  days  these  mounds  were  rubbish  for  which  man 
had  no  use.  Now  science  has  stepped  in,  and  this 
rubbish  is  being  treated  once  more,  and  from  four 
to  six  ounces  of  silver  per  ton  are  being  reclaimed. 
A  big  mechanical  shovel,  working  on  an  overhead 
cable,  was  dropping  and  digging  into  this  dump;  it 
lifted  itself  full  and  moved  along  the  rope  until  it 
dropped  its  load  into  a  chute.  No  man  went  near  it : 
a  super-fellow  at  the  levers  of  a  donkey-engine  main- 
tained a  control. 

The  mine  gave  him  a  little  memento  in  silver,  and 
very  prettily.  Two  delightful  little  girls  came  out 
of  a  mass  of  miners,  and  handed  him  a  small  brick 
of  soHd  silver  inscribed  to  commemorate  the  visit. 
The  brick  weighed  thirty-five  ounces. 

In  a  short  while  the  Prince  was  in  the  place  where 
the  brick  was  smelted.  This  was  in  a  small  house 
containing  several  furnaces  built  to  the  level  of  a 
man's  breast.  They  are  not  large  furnaces,  but 
when  their  doors  are  opened  one  can  look  on  to  an 
incandescent  pool  of  liquid  silver  that  the  gas  or  oil 
flames  have  melted.  The  Prince  watched  the  pro- 
cess of  casting  bricks  with  interest,  questioning  the 
two  demobilized  soldiers  who  worked  a  big  ladle 
with  the  close  curiosity  he  had  shown  over  every  de- 


i 


Silver,  Gold  and  Commerce      267 

tail  of  the  milling.  Dipping  the  long-handled  ladle 
into  the  shining  pool,  the  soldiers  swung  it  out,  and 
poured  the  spitting  and  sparkling  contents  into  a 
metal  mould,  in  which  the  silver  brick  was  formed. 
In  this  small  room  is  smelted  all  the  metal  of  one  of 
the  richest  mining  towns  in  the  world. 

From  here  the  cars  went  adventurously  along  the 
steep  and  spiral  roads,  and  amid  the  tall  corrugated 
iron  towers  and  buildings  that  form  the  many  mine 
workings.  The  Prince  passed  round  the  bases  of 
great  grey  slack  and  slime  heaps  of  old  and  dis- 
carded workings  that  have  been  worth  millions  of 
dollars  in  their  day,  but,  after  the  fickle  way  of  silver 
veins,  have  now  given  out.  Through  this  harsh  and 
grey  country  he  drove  until  he  came  to  the  O'Brien 
mine,  where  he  was  to  try  the  adventure  of  a  descent. 

The  descent  into  a  mine  needs  armour,  and  the 
Prince  buckled  on  rubber  overshoes,  an  oilskin  coat 
and  a  sou'wester  hat.  Garbed  thus,  and  with  an 
acetylene  lamp  in  his*  hand,  he  was  the  natural  prey 
of  photographers,  who  refused  to  spare  him  until 
he  escaped  into  the  cage  and  baffled  them  by  going 
underground. 

Cobalt,  which  had  been  cheering  the  Prince  at 
every  available  spot,  can  boast  that  she  also  man- 
aged to  do  it  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth.  Descending 
three  hundred  feet.  His  Royal  Highness  walked 
some  distance  through  the  dark  tunnel  of  the  work- 
ings, and  in  each  gallery  the  ghostly  figures  of  miners 
gave  him  a  subterranean  cheer.  At  the  end  of  this 
walk  he  went  down  another  three  hundred  feet,  to 
where  a  new  stope  was  being  started.     This  was  his 


268    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

own  particular  vein,  for  it  had  already  been  chris- 
tened "  The  Prince  of  Wales  Stope  "  in  his  honour 
—  no  mean  compliment,  for  it  is  anticipated  that  it 
will  yield  at  least  a  million  dollars. 

The  Prince  showed  a  natural  interest  in  this  seam, 
and  in  the  methods  of  working  it,  and  he  also  took, 
as  it  were,  a  sponsor's  fee,  for  he  worked  a  piece  of 
rock  from  the  vein  with  hi-s  fingers  and  carried  it 
away  as  a  memento. 

Beyond  Cobalt  the  land  becomes  greener  and 
more  hospitable,  and  it  opens  up  into  great  ranges  of 
good  farms,  and  this  state  of  things  continues  until, 
along  a  branch  line,  the  sprawling  and  great  gold- 
mining  centres  of  Timmins  threw  their  bleak  melan- 
ch'oly  over  the  land. 

In  Timmins  itself  can  be  seen  a  Canadian  town  at 
birth.  Its  wooden  shack  houses  and  brick  buildings 
are  only  now  being  brought  to  order  along  its  streets. 
Its  roads  are  still  ankle-deep  in  mud;  buckboards  and 
other  country  rigs  are,  with  motors,  the  means  of 
transport  —  it  only  wanted  Douglas  Fairbanks  in  a 
Western  get-up  to  complete  it  as  a  town  projected 
into  reality  from  the  "  movies."  It  is  a  one-man 
town,  and  bears  the  name  of  the  pioneer  who  brought 
it  into  being,  and  who  is  still  the  driving  force  of  the 
great  gold  mines  that  make  it  one  of  the  richest 
places  on  the  earth.  He  is  a  quiet  man,  whose  force 
of  character  is  concealed  behind  gold-rimmed  spec- 
tacles and  a  rooted  instinct  against  waste  of  words. 

The  Prince  spent  an  interesting  hour  at  his  mines, 
which  are  among  the  largest,  if  they  are  not  the 
largest,  of  their  kind  in  the  Empire;  all  the  processes 


Silver^  Gold  and  Commerce      269 

were  explained  to  him,  though  he  did  not  go  into  the 
workings  as  he  did  at  Cobalt.  He  had,  it  goes  with- 
out saying,  a  royal  reception  here,  which,  in  the 
hands  of  the  liveliest  of  mayors,  had  more  than  a 
tinge  of  humour  in  It. 

Timmins  was  the  Prince's  last  adventure  in  the 
wilds.  Steaming  south  and  west  along  the  Grand 
Trunk  Railway,  he  passed  through  the  delightful 
holiday  scenery  of  the  Muskoka  Lakes,  and,  in  coun- 
try becoming  gradually  more  and  more  domestic  and 
British,  approached  Hamilton  and  the  thickly  in- 
habited areas  of  Western  Ontario. 


II 

In  coming  to  Hamilton  the  Prince  returned  to  the 
regions  of  big  welcomes.  It  was  not  that  the  East 
was  more  loyal  or  warm  than  the  West,  but  that, 
grouped  in  the  vast  area  of  Canada  lying  between  the 
Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  and  the  Great  Lakes,  are  the 
old  and  teeming  industrial  centres  of  the  Dominion. 
In  this  area  is  about  seventy  per  cent,  of  Canada's 
population,  and  men,  women  and  children  can  pack 
themselves  into  the  streets  by  the  tens  of  thousands, 
be  those  streets  ever  so  many  or  ever  so  long. 

This  was  Hamilton's  way.  Hamilton  is  a  "  Get 
on  or  Get  out "  proposition.  It  is  dubbed  not 
merely  "  the  Birmingham  of  Canada,"  but  also  "  the 
Ambitious  City,"  It  is  not  the  largest  town  in  the 
Dominion,  but  it  asks  you  to  reserve  judgment  as  to 
that,  and  meanwhile  it  lets  you  know  that  it  is  one  of 
the  richest. 


270    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

From  the  abrupt  heights  that  rise  behind  it,  one 
looks  down,  not  upon  an  historic  panorama,  as  at 
Quebec,  but  a  Brangwyn  panel  of  "  modern  pro- 
gress." Between  the  abrupt  hills  and  the  waters  of 
Lake  Ontario  the  city  is  packed  tight  on  a  rising 
strip  of  plain.  The  stacks  of  many  industries,  the 
rigid  uplift  of  square,  practical  factories,  the  fret  of 
derricks  and  patent  loaders  by  the  waterside,  all  seen 
under  smudges  and  scarves  of  factory  smoke,  would 
give  It  an  air  of  resolute  drabness  If  it  were  not  for 
its  multitude  of  trees. 

Trees  there  are  in  profusion,  rising  up  between 
the  stiff  walls  of  commercial  buildings,  lining  the 
long,  straight  avenues  that  look  like  bands  of  grey- 
ish water  from  the  heights,  and  grouping  about  the 
comely  houses  that  form  the  residential  quarters  on 
the  slopes  rising  towards  the  onlooker  on  The  Moun- 
tain. But,  even  in  spite  of  the  trees  and  the  blue 
shine  of  the  distant  lake,  there  is  an  atmosphere  of 
industrial  greyness  that  differentiates  it  from  other 
cities. 

There  was  an  air  of  Industrialism  about  the 
packed  welcome  Hamilton  gave  the  Prince.  He 
had  slipped  Into  the  city  on  the  afternoon  of  Friday, 
October  17th,  but  not  officially.  He  was  merely  to 
attend  the  invisible  pleasures  of  golf  and  dancing. 
On  Saturday  he  entered  Hamilton  ceremoniously, 
officially.  He  drove  down  In  a  car  to  a  siding, 
entered  the  train,  was  backed  into  the  station,  and 
alighted  from  It  and  entered  the  car  he  had  just 
left.  The  church  bells  rang  "  Oh,  Canada,"  and 
he  had  *'  arrived." 


Silver^  Gold  and  Commerce      271 

The  industrial  atmosphere  was  created  by  the 
workers  who  thronged  the  narrow  business  streets 
in  their  overalls,  having  obviously  come  out  from 
bench  and  ironworks  and  packing  factories,  as  well 
as  from  the  stores  and  offices,  to  see  the  Prince.  I 
noticed  among  the  crowd  a  great  number  of  Jews, 
more  than  I  had  seen  in  other  Canadian  cities. 

Yet,  if  Hamilton  was  industrial,  it  also  knew  how 
to  meet  a  Prince.  Its  streets  were  delightfully  dec- 
orated, and  in  the  general  scheme  of  bunting  the 
authorities  had  hung  over  the  roads  in  pairs,  small 
square  banners  of  the  victory  medal  ribbon,  so  that 
the  Prince  passed  under  this  sign  of  triumph  al- 
ways. Swaying  high  up  in  the  trees,  just  coming  into 
the  autumn  gold  of  foliage,  this  scheme  of  decora- 
tion made  a  most  effective  showing. 

Part  of  the  Prince's  ride  through  the  town  was 
along  James  Street,  that  sweeps  in  a  single  straight 
line  from  The  Mountain  to  the  shore  of  the  lake. 
All  manner  of  citizens  were  crowded  in  this  sump- 
tuous boulevard  and  in  the  pretty  streets  that  ran 
through  the  pleasant  home  centres.  Now  the  cars 
passed  through  packed  ranks  of  children  ranged  ac- 
cording to  schools,  and  all  torn  betv/een  the  purely 
human  desire  of  shouting  their  heads  off  and  the 
duty  of  singing,  "  God  bless  the  Prince  of  Wales," 
the  result  being  an  eerie  noise  that  left  no  doubt 
about  the  quality  of  the  enthusiasm.  When  there 
were  no  children  there  were  grown-ups,  gathered 
everywhere,  perched  everywhere  and  anywhere  in 
their  determination  to  get  a  good  view.  On  one 
low  bungalow  was  a  family  group,  mother,  father, 


272    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

children  and  baby-in-arms,  sitting  perilous  but 
serenely  content  on  the  very  ridge-pole  of  the  roof. 
From  a  group  of  houses  in  the  same  suave  street 
had  come  many  men,  matrons  and  maidens,  waving 
the  green  flag  of  the  harp,  all  fiercely  insistent  on 
the  rights  of  Ireland  to  cheer  and  show  enthusiasm. 

So  the  Prince  came  to  a  great,  comely  semi-Gothic 
hall  with  a  million  children  round  it  (that  was  the 
effect,  though  Hamilton  hasn't  half  a  million  in- 
habitants), and  I  don't  know  how  many  In  It.  This 
hall  was  a  chamber  of  children,  a  forcing-house  of 
delightful  infants.  Under  the  broad,  mellow  light 
that  beat  down  from  the  great  windows  in  the  roof 
all  the  prettiest  kiddles  in  the  world  seemed  to  be 
set  In  banks  of  cultivation.  Children  were  in  mass 
round  the  walls.  Children  stretched  upward  in  a 
square  of  galleries.  Children  flowered  everywhere 
—  only  a  fillet  of  walking-space  was  clear,  where  a 
desperate  gardener  had  clipped  a  passage-way  for 
the  Prince,  it  seemed. 

And  they  were  such  vivacious  children.  They 
cheered.  They  sang  lilting  part-songs,  each  great 
bank  of  Infancy  taking  up  the  melody  until  the  hall 
was  all  tune,  and  the  walls  seemed  to  be  pressed 
back  by  the  fine  soaring  sweetness  of  the  fugue. 
And  when  they  had  sung  they  burst  into  the  sudden 
and  amazing  sparkle  of  their  school  yell,  "  Hamil- 
ton !  Hamilton !  Hamilton !  "  and  then  diffused 
their  fervour  In  a  swinging  burst  of  cheers. 

And  Canadians,  children  or  adults,  can  cheer. 
Hands  and  flags  and  hats  and  body  join  in,  to  give 
an  impression  both  passionate  and  irresistible.     And 


Silver,  Gold  and  Commerce       273 

before  this  storm  the  Prince  could  only  laugh  and 
wave  back  with  something  of  the  children's  aban- 
don, and  so  delighted  did  he  seem  that  one  of  the 
Canadians  who  watched  him  had  every  right  to  cry 
out: 

"  Say  —  say  —  isn't  he  just  tickled  to  death?  " 

Through  the  streets  in  his  ride  to  The  Mountain 
this  wave  of  cheering  followed  him,  and,  quick  to 
respond,  the  Prince  was  once  more  on  his  feet  in  his 
car  and  waving  gladly  back  to  the  crowds  on  the 
sidewalk.  So  ardently  did  he  do  this,  that  a  little 
girl  who  had  watched  him  coming  and  who  watched 
his  passing,  turned  to  her  mother  and  cried: 

"  Poor  hand." 

It  was  certainly  a  strenuously  used  hand,  but  its 
endurance  had  limits,  and,  as  he  was  forced  to  trans- 
fer the  office  of  hand-shaking  to  the  left,  so  he  fre- 
quently had  to  use  the  left  for  waving  on  these  long 
rides,  and  give  the  right  a  rest. 

On  The  Mountain,  the  tall  buttress  that  curves 
behind  the  town,  the  Prince  drove  through  avenues 
of  fine  homes  to  the  Hamilton  Memorial  Hospital, 
a  magnificent  tribute  to  those  men  of  the  city  who 
gave  their  lives  in  the  war.  It  is,  of  course,  thor- 
oughly up-to-date  in  appointments,  but  it  is  more 
than  that:  it  is  a  poignant  link  with  the  brave  dead, 
for  every  ward  has  been  dedicated  to  a  brave  son 
of  Hamilton  who  died  overseas,  and  a  brass  plate  in 
each  ward  records  the  heroic  name. 

At  this  hospital  the  Prince  was  received  by  a 
Welsh  choir,  many  of  the  lasses  dressed  in  the  tall 
hats  and  native  laces  and  fabrics  of  Wales,  and,  so 


274    Westward  with  the  Vrince  of  Wales 

that  nobody  should  make  mistakes  about  them,  each 
(men  and  women)  wore  a  fresh  leek  at  the  breast. 

The  Prince  also  visited  the  Sanatorium  on  the 
heights,  and  drove  out  to  the  Club,  where  he  lunched, 
and,  on  the  whole,  filled  a  day  with  all  the  bustle  that 
Hamilton  knows  well  how  to  put  into  events.  It 
was  only  at  night  that  he  was  free  to  leave  this 
vigorous  town,  and  start  for  the  restful  beauties  of 
Niagara. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

NIAGARA  AND  THE  TOWNS  OF  WESTERN  ONTARIO 

I 

THE  best  first  impression  of  Niagara  Falls  is, 
I  think,  the  one  the  Prince  of  Wales  ob- 
tained. 

Those  who  really  wish  to  experience  the  thrills 
of  grandeur  and  poetry  of  this  marvel  had  better 
delay  their  visit  until  a  night  in  summer,  and  make 
arrangements  with  the  railway  time-table  to  get  there 
somewhere  after  dark.  Upon  arriving  they  must 
hire  a  car,  and  drive  down  to  the  splendid  boulevard 
on  the  Canadian  side.  They  will  then  see  the  great 
mass  of  water  under  the  shine  of  lights,  falling 
eternally,  eternally  presenting  a  picture  of  almost 
cruel  beauty.  They  will  then  know  an  experience 
that  transcends  all  other  experiences  as  well  as  all  at- 
tempts at  description. 

The  curious  feeling  of  disappointment  which 
comes  to  many  in  daylight  will  have  been  guarded 
against,  and,  stimulated  by  that  wondrous  first 
vision,  they  will  tide  over  that  spiritually  barren 
period  which  many  know  until  the  marvel  of  the 
Falls  begins  to  "  grow  on  them." 

The  Prince  came  from  Flamilton  to  Niagara 
somewhere  very  close  to  midnight  on  Saturday,  the 
1 8th.     He  was  carried  through  the  dark  town  and 

2/5 


276    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

country  to  the  house  of  one  of  the  Falls  Commis- 
sioners. From  here,  through  a  filigree  of  trees  and 
leaves,  he  could  look  across  the  smoking  gorge  to 
the  Falls  on  the  American  side.  Batteries  of  great 
arc  lights,  focused  and  hidden  cunningly,  shone  upon 
the  curtain  of  white  and  tumbling  waters,  and  upon 
the  strong,  black  mass  of  Goat  Island,  that  is  perched 
like  a  diver  eternally  hesitant  on  the  very  brink  of 
the  two-hundred-foot  plunge. 

The  ghostly  beauty  of  the  falling  water  through 
the  light,  now  a  solid  and  tremendous  curve,  now 
broken  into  filaments  and  zigzag  whorls,  now  veiled 
by  the  upward  drift  of  the  gossamer  spray,  held  the 
Prince's  gaze  for  some  time.  But  even  that  beauty 
was  transcended.  He  himself  pressed  an  electric 
switch,  and  the  grand  curve  of  the  Canadian  Horse- 
shoe blazed  fully  alight  for  the  first  time  in  their  his- 
tory, and  though  from  this  position  this  could  not  be 
fully  seen,  this  new  addition  of  light  gave  the  whole 
mass  before  his  eyes  an  additional  loveliness. 

From  this  point  the  Prince  motored  through  the 
town  to  the  splendid  wide  promenade  that  borders 
the  Canadian  side  of  the  gorge,  and  spent  half  an 
hour  watching  the  fascinating  play  of  falling  water 
^nd  spray  in  the  narrow  cauldron  of  the  Horseshoe. 

He  stood  a  foot  away  from  the  point  where  the 
water  leaps  in  its  magnificent  and  enigmatic  curve 
into  the  tortured  pool  below.  Green  at  the  curve, 
the  water  is  a  mass  of  curdled  white  in  the  strong 
lights  as  it  falls.  Beneath,  the  face  of  the  water  is 
a  passionate  surface  of  whirlpools  and  eddies  and 
tossing  whiteness.     From  the  tremendous  impact  of 


The  Towns  of  Western  Ontario    277 

the  drop  a  column  of  spray  shoots  and  curls  high  up 
In  the  air.  It  towers  quite  six  hundred  feet  above 
the  surface  of  the  water,  and  it  is  hard  to  believe 
that  enduring  mass  of  spray  comes  from  the  fall;  in 
the  distance  one  is  convinced  that  it  is  steam  arising 
from  some  big  factory. 

On  the  next  day  (Sunday)  the  Prince  saw  the 
Falls  in  their  every  phase.  He  walked  up-stream 
above  the  Horseshoe  to  where  the  Niagara  River 
jostles  down  over  a  series  of  ledges  in  the  grand  and 
angry  Canadian  Rapids,  a  sight  as  tumultuous  and 
as  thrilling  in  its  own  fashion  as  the  Falls  themselves. 
He  visited  the  big,  white  stone  power-house  to 
examine  with  the  greatest  interest  the  machinery 
that  traps  the  tremendous  latent  power  of  the  plung- 
ing water,  harnesses  it,  and  so  turns  the  wheels  of  a 
thousand  industries,  and  lights  hundreds  of  towns. 

Partly  walking,  partly  riding  in  a  car  of  the  scenic 
tramway,  he  followed  the  line  of  the  Falls  and  river 
downward  to  where  the  Whirlpool  Rapids  curdle 
and  eddy  within  the  deep  walls  of  the  gorge.  Over 
on  the  American  side  he  saw  the  castles  and  keeps 
of  modern  industry:  power-houses  and  factories, 
springing  up  from  the  very  rock  of  the  cliff,  and  al- 
most forming  part  of  it.  On  the  Canadian  side  the 
people  have  not  let  their  utilitarian  sense  run  away 
with  them  to  such  an  extent.  Where  America  edges 
the  gorge  with  commercial  buildings,  Canada  has 
constructed  her  beautiful  promenade,  which  con- 
tinues the  comeliness  of  the  Falls  Park  through  a 
pretty  residential  district.  America  has  Prospect 
Park  and  the  very  beautiful  Goat  Island  Park  on  its 


278    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

side,  but  these  are  not  extended  along  the  gorge. 

Below  the  Whirlpool  Rapids  the  Prince  descended 
to  the  level  of  the  river;  later,  he  came  to  the  top 
of  the  gorge  again,  and  crossed,  swinging  two  hun- 
dred feet  above  the  water  on  the  spidery  ropes  of  the 
aerial  railways,  the  great  pool  at  the  end  of  the 
river  canyon,  into  which  the  pent-up  water  pushes 
swirHng  before  turning  at  right  angles  towards  Lake 
Ontario. 

The  Prince  did  not  go  over  to  the  American  side, 
but  America  came  to  him.  The  white  number-plates 
of  New  York  State  seemed  to  be  everywhere  on  auto- 
mobiles, even  outnumbering  the  yellow  of  Ontario. 
One  had  the  impression  that  every  American  motor- 
owner  within  gasolene  radius  had  decided  that  he 
would  take  his  Sunday  spin  to  Niagara  Falls,  and  on 
to  the  Canadian  side  of  the  Falls  to  boot. 

American  cars  were  coming  over  the  bridges  all 
day,  and  American  owners  waited  cheerfully  along 
the  route  to  get  a  glimpse  of  "  The  Boy,"  as  the 
American  papers  called  the  Prince.  They  joined 
themselves  to  the  very  friendly  crowd  of  Canadians 
who  gathered  everywhere  along  the  route,  and  their 
cheering,  mingling  with  Canadian  cheering,  showed 
that  friendliness  is  not  an  affair  that  frontiers  can 
manipulate. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  frontier  at  Niagara  is 
the  most  imaginary  of  lines.  Now  that  the  war  is 
over  there  is  no  difficulty  in  getting  to  either  side. 
And  there  is  no  change  in  atmosphere  either.  Peo- 
ple and  conditions  are  much  the  same,  only  on  the 
American  side  our  dollars  cost  us  more. 


The  Towns  of  Western  Ontario    279 

II 

Western  Ontario  Is,  in  the  main,  the  most  British 
part  of  Canada.  Its  towns  have  British  names, 
and  the  streets  of  the  towns  have  British  names, 
while  their  atmosphere  and  design  are  almost  of  the 
Home  Counties.  The  countryside  (if  one  overlooks 
the  absence  of  hedges  —  though  rows  of  upturned 
tree-roots  with  plants  growing  among  them  some- 
times have  the  look  of  hedges)  is  the  suave,  domes- 
ticated countryside  of  England.  England  is  in  the 
very  air.  And  at  the  first  of  these  curiously  Eng- 
lish towns  the  Prince  became  an  Indian  chief. 

Brantford,  though  it  reminds  one  of  a  comely 
British  country  town,  preferably  one  with  a  Church 
influence  in  it,  is  really  the  capital  of  the  Six  Nation 
Indians.  It  actually  owes  its  name  to  Joseph  Brant, 
the  Mohawk  chief,  who,  having  fought  his  Indians 
on  the  side  of  the  British  —  as  the  braves  of  the 
fierce  and  powerful  Six  Nations  had  always  fought 
on  the  side  of  the  British  —  in  the  War  of  Indepen- 
dence, marched  his  tribes  from  their  old  camping- 
grounds  in  the  Mohawk  Valley  to  this  place,  so  that 
they  could  remain  under  British  rule. 

The  Indians  of  the  Six  Nations  still  live  In  and 
about  Brantford,  for,  though  they  have  ceded  away 
their  lands  to  settlers,  they  are  among  the  few  of 
the  aboriginal  races  that  have  thrived  and  not  de- 
cayed under  civilization.  The  Prince's  visit  to 
Brantford  on  Monday,  October  20th,  was  nearly  all 
a  visit  to  the  Mohawks,  the  leaders  of  the  ancient 
Indian  federation  of  six  tribes. 


28o    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

This  Is  not  to  say  that  the  welcome  given  him  by 
Canadians  was  not  a  great  one.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  was  astonishing,  and  it  was  difficult  to 
Imagine  how  a  small  town  like  this  could  pack  its 
streets  with  so  many  people.  But  Brantford  Is  in- 
dustrial and  scientific  also,  as  well  as  being  Indian. 
After  a  strenuous  reception,  for  instance,  the  Prince 
went  along  to  the  statue  that  shrines  the  town's  claim 
to  a  place  in  the  history  of  science.  This  was  the 
memorial  to  Dr.  Bell,  who  lived  in  Brantford  and 
who  Invented  the  first  telephone  in  Brantford. 
They  will  even  show  you  the  trees  from  which  the 
first  hne  over  which  the  first  spoken  message  sent, 
was  strung. 

But  the  colourful  ceremonies  of  Brantford  were 
those  connected  with  the  Mohawks.  The  Prince 
was  taken  out  to  the  small,  old  wooden  chapel  that 
George  III.  erected  for  his  loyal  Mohawk  allies. 
It  is  the  oldest  Protestant  chapel  in  the  Dominion. 
On  its  walls  are  painted  prayers  in  Mohawk,  and  It 
contains  an  old  register  that  King  Edward  had  signed 
in  1 86 1.  The  Prince  added  his  own  signature  to 
this  before  going  Into  the  churchyard  to  see  the  grave 
of  Joseph  Brant. 

In  the  little  enclosure  before  the  church  were  the 
youngest  descendants  of  the  loyal  Joseph  Brant: 
ranks  of  Mohawk  boys  In  khaki,  and  small  Mohawk 
girls  in  red  and  grey.  They  sang  to  the  Prince  in 
their  own  language,  a  singular  guttural  tongue 
rendered  with  an  almost  abnormal  stoicism.  The 
children  did  not  move  a  muscle  of  lips  or  face  as 


The  Towns  of  Western  Ontario    281 

they  chanted;  it  might  have  been  a  song  rendered  by 
graven  images. 

In  the  main  square  of  Brantford  the  Prince  was 
elected  chief  of  the  Six  Nations.  This  ceremony 
was  carried  out  upon  a  raised  and  beflagged  platform 
about  which  a  vast  throng  of  pale-faces  gathered. 
Becoming  a  chief  of  the  Six  Nations  is  no  light  mat- 
ter. It  is  a  thing  that  must  be  discussed  in  full  with 
all  ceremonies  and  accurate  minutes.  The  pow-wow 
on  the  platform  was  rather  long.  Chiefs  rose  up 
and  debated  at  leisure  in  the  Iroquois  tongue,  while 
the  pale-faces  in  the  square,  at  first  quite  patient,  be- 
gan to  demand  in  loud  voices : 

"  We  want  our  Prince.     We  want  our  Prince." 

And  to  be  truthful,  not  merely  the  pale-faces  found 
the  ceremony  lengthy.  Gathered  on  the  platform 
were  a  number  of  Mohawk  girls,  delicate  and  pretty 
maidens,  with  the  warmth  of  their  race's  colour 
glowing  through  the  soft  texture  of  their  cheeks. 
They  were  there  because  they  had  thrown  flowers 
in  the  pathway  of  the  Prince.  At  first  they  were 
interested  in  this  olden  ceremony  of  their  old  race. 
Then  they  began  to  talk  of  the  wages  they  were 
drawing  in  extremely  modern  Canadian  stores  and 
factories.  Then  they  looked  at  the  ceremony  again, 
at  the  clothes  the  Indians  wore,  at  the  romance  and 
colour  of  it,  and  they  said,  one  to  another: 

"  Say,  why  have  those  guys  dressed  up  like  that? 
What's  it  all  about,  anyhow?  What's  the  use  of 
this  funny  old  business?  " 

The  romantic  may  find  some  food  for  thought  in 
this  attitude  of  the  modern  Mohawk  maid. 


282    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

In  the  end,  after  a  debate  on  the  fitness  of  several 
names,  the  Prince,  as  president  of  the  pow-wow, 
gave  his  vote  for  "  Dawn  of  Morning,"  and  became 
chief  with  that  title.  But  apparently  he  did  not  be- 
come fully  fledged  until  he  had  danced  a  ritual  mea- 
sure. A  brother  chief  in  bright  yellow  and  a  fine 
gravity,  came  forward  to  guide  the  Prince's  steps, 
and  the  Prince,  immediately  entering  into  the  spirit 
of  the  ceremony,  joined  with  him  in  shuffling  and 
bowing  to  and  fro  across  the  platform.  Only  after 
the  congratulations  from  fellow-Mohawks  and  pale- 
faces, did  he  leave  the  dais  to  fight  —  there  is  no 
other  word  —  his  way  through  the  dense  and  cheer- 
ful mass  that  packed  the  square  almost  to  danger- 
point. 

It  was  a  splendid  crowd,  good-humoured  and 
ardent.  It  had  cheered  every  moment,  though,  per- 
haps, it  had  cheered  more  strongly  at  one  moment. 
This  was  when  am  old  Indian  woman  ran  up  to  the 
Prince,  crying:  "  I  met  your  father  and  your  grand- 
father, and  I'm  British  too."  At  her  words  the 
Prince  had  taken  the  rose  from  his  buttonhole  and 
had  presented  it  to  her.  And  that  delighted  the 
crowd. 

Ill 

The  fine  weather  of  Monday  gave  way  to  pitiless 
rain  on  the  morning  of  Tuesday,  October  21st.  All 
the  same,  the  rain  did  not  prevent  the  reception  at 
Guelph  from  being  warm  and  intensely  interesting. 

Guelph  is  one  of  the  many  comely  and  thriving 
towns  of  West  Ontario,  but  its  chiefest  feature  is 


The  Towns  of  Western  Ontario    283 

its  great  Agricultural  College  that  trains  the  scien- 
tific farmer,  not  of  Ontario  and  Canada  alone,  but 
for  many  countries  in  the  Western  World.  This  col- 
lege gave  the  Prince  a  captivating  welcome. 

It  has  men  students,  but  it  has  many  attractive 
and  bonny  girl  students,  also,  and  these  helped  to 
distinguish  the  day,  that  is,  with  a  little  help  from 
the  "  movie  "  men. 

The  "  movie  "  men  who  travelled  with  the  train 
had  captured  the  spectacle  of  the  Prince's  arrival 
at  the  station,  and  had  driven  off  to  the  college  to  be 
in  readiness  to  "  shoot  "  when  His  Royal  Highness 
arrived.  They  had  ten  minutes  to  wait.  Not 
merely  that,  they  had  ten  minutes  to  wait  in  the  com- 
pany of  a  bunch  of  the  prettiest  and  liveliest  girl 
students  in  West  Ontario.  "  Movie  "  men  are  not 
of  the  hesitant  class.  Somewhere  in  the  first 
seventy-five  seconds  they  became  old  friends  of  the 
students  who  were  filling  the  college  windows  with 
so  much  attraction.  In  one  minute  and  forty-five 
seconds  they  had  the  girls  in  training  for  the  Prince's 
arrival.  They  had  hummed  over  the  melody  of 
what  they  declared  was  the  Prince's  favourite  opera 
selection;  a  girl  at  a  piano  had  picked  up  the  tune, 
while  the  others  practised  harder  than  diva  ever  did. 

When  the  Prince  arrived  the  training  proved 
worth  while.  He  was  saluted  from  a  hundred  laugh- 
ing heads  at  a  score  of  windows  with  the  song  that 
had  followed  him  all  over  Canada.  He  drove  into 
the  College,  not  to  the  stirring  strains  of  "  Oh, 
Canada,"  but  to  the  syncopated  lilt  of  "  Johnny's 
in  Town." 


284    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

The  Prince  was  not  altogether  out  of  the  youthful 
gaiety  of  the  scene,  for  after  the  lunch,  where  the 
students  had  scrambled  for  souvenirs,  a  piece  of 
sugar  from  his  coffee  cup,  a  stick  of  celery  from  his 
plate,  even  a  piece  of  his  pie,  he  made  all  these  dash- 
ing young  women  gather  about  him  in  the  group 
that  was  to  make  the  commemorative  photo,  and  a 
very  jolly,  laughing  group  it  was. 

And  when  he  was  about  to  leave,  and  in  answer  to 
a  massed  feminine  chorus,  this  time  chanting: 

"  We  —  want  —  a  —  holiday." 

He  called  out  cheerfully: 

"  All  right.     I'll  fix  that  holiday."     And  he  did. 


IV 

The  whole  of  these  days  were  filled  with  Sittings 
hither  and  thither  on  the  Grand  Trunk  line  (the 
passage  of  the  Prince  being  smoothly  manipulated 
by  another  of  Canada's  fine  railway  men,  and  a 
genius  in  good  fellowship,  Mr.  H.  R.  Charlton), 
as  the  Prince  called  at  the  pretty  and  vigorous 
towns  on  the  tongue  of  Ontario  that  stretches  be- 
tween Lake  Huron  and  Lake  Erie  to  the  American 
border. 

Stratford,  with  something  of  the  comely  grace  of 
Shakespeare's  town  in  its  avenues  of  neat  homes  and 
fine  trees,  gave  him  as  warm  a  reception  as  any- 
where in  Canada  on  the  evening  of  October  21st. 
On  Wednesday,  October  22nd,  the  same  hearty  wel- 
come was  extended  by  those  singularly  English 
towns,  Woodstock  and  Chatham. 


The  Towns  of  Western  Ontario    285 


On  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day  London  gave 
him  a  mass  welcome  mainly  of  children  in  its  big 
central  park.  London,  Ontario,  is  an  echo  of  Lon- 
don, Thames.  It  has  its  Blackfriars  and  Regent 
Street,  its  Piccadilly  and  St.  James'.  It  is  indus- 
trial and  crowded,  as  the  English  London  is.  Its 
public  reception  to  the  Prince  was  remarkable.  It 
had  managed  it  rather  well.  It  had  stated  that  all 
who  wished  to  be  present  must  apply  for  tickets  of 
admission.  Thousands  did,  and  they  passed  before 
the  Prince  in  a  motley  and  genial  crowd  of  top  hats 
and  gingham  skirts,  striped  sweaters  and  satin 
charmeuse.  But  though  they  came  in  thousands,  the 
numbers  of  ticket-holders  were  ultimately  ex- 
hausted. When  the  last  one  had  passed,  the  Prince 
looked  at  his  wrist  watch.  There  was  half  an  hour 
to  spare  before  the  reception  was  due  to  close.  He 
told  those  about  him  to  open  the  doors  of  the  build- 
ing and  let  the  unticketed  public  in. 

From  London  the  Grand  Trunk  carried  us  to 
Windsor  on  Thursday,  October  23rd,  where  crowds 
were  so  dense  about  the  station  that  they  over- 
flowed on  to  the  engine  until  one  could  no  longer  see 
it  for  humanity  and  little  boys.  From  the  engine 
eager  sightseers  even  scrambled  along  the  tops  of 
the  great  steel  cars  until  they  became  veritable 
grandstands. 

Crowds  were  in  the  virile  streets,  and  they  were 
not  all  Canadians  either.  A  ferry  plies  from  Wind- 
sor to  the  United  States,  and  America,  which  at  no 
time  lost  an  opportunity  of  coming  across  the  bor- 
der to  see  the  Prince,  had  come  across  in  great  num- 


286    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

bers.  Canadians  there  were  in  Windsor,  thousands 
of  them,  but  quite  a  fair  volume  of  the  cheering  had 
a  United  States  timbre. 

A  city  with  an  electric  fervour,  Windsor.  That 
comes  not  merely  from  the  towering  profile  of  De- 
troit's skyscrapers  seen  across  the  river,  but  from 
the  spirit  of  Windsor  itself.  Detroit  is  America's 
"  motoropolis,"  and  from  the  air  of  it  Windsor  will 
be  Canada's  motoropolis  of  tomorrow.  It  is  al- 
ready thrusting  its  way  up  to  the  first  line  of  indus- 
trial cities;  it  is  already  a  centre  for  the  manufac- 
ture of  the  ubiquitous  Ford  car  and  others,  and  it 
is  learning  and  profiting  a  lot  from  its  American 
brother. 

The  Canadian  and  American  populations  are,  in 
a  sense,  interchangeable.  The  United  States  comes 
across  to  work  in  Windsor,  and  Windsor  goes  across 
to  work  in  America.  The  ferry,  not  a  very  bustling 
ferry,  not  such  a  good  ferry,  for  example,  as  that 
which  crosses  the  English  Thames  at  Woolwich,  car- 
ries men  and  women  and  carts,  and,  inevitably,  auto- 
mobiles between  the  two  cities. 

Detroit  took  a  great  interest  in  the  Prince.  It 
sent  a  skirmishing  line  of  newspapermen  up  the  rail- 
way to  meet  him,  and  they  travelled  in  the  train 
with  us,  and  failed,  as  all  pressmen  did,  to  get  in- 
terviews with  him.  We  certainly  took  an  interest 
in  Detroit.  It  was  not  merely  the  sense-capturing 
profile  of  Detroit,  the  sky-scrapers  that  give  such  a 
sense  of  soaring  zest  by  day,  and  look  like  fairy 
castles  hung  in  the  air  at  night,  but  the  quick,  vivid 
spirit  of  the  city  that  intrigued  us. 


I 


The  Towns  of  Western  Ontario    287 

We  went  across  to  visit  it  the  next  morning,  and 
found  it  had  the  delight  of  a  new  sensation.  It  is  a 
city  with  a  sparkle.  It  is  a  city  where  the  automo- 
bile is  a  commonplace,  and  the  horse  a  thing  for 
pause  and  comment.  It  contained  a  hundred  points 
of  novelty  for  us,  from  the  whiteness  of  its  build- 
ings, the  beauty  of  its  domestic  architecture,  the  up- 
to-date  advertising  of  its  churches,  to  its  policemen 
on  traffic  duty  who,  on  a  rostrum  and  under  an 
umbrella,  commanded  the  traffic  with  a  sign-board 
on  which  was  written  the  laconic  commands,  "  Go  " 
and  "  Stop." 

And,  naturally,  we  visited  the  Ford  Works.  A 
place  where  I  found  the  efficiency  of  effort  almost 
frighteningly  uncanny.  One  of  these  days  those  in- 
humanly human  machines  will  bridge  the  faint  gulf 
that  separates  them  from  actual  life,  then,  like  Frank- 
enstein's monster,  they  will  turn  upon  their  creators. 

Gait  (Friday,  October  24th)  gave  the  Prince  an- 
other great  reception;  then,  passing  through 
Toronto,  he  travelled  to  Kingston,  which  he 
reached  on  Saturday,  October  25th. 

Kingston,  though  it  had  its  beginnings  in  the  old 
stone  fort  that  Frontenac  built  on  the  margin  of 
Lake  Ontario  to  hold  in  check  the  English  settlers 
in  New  York  and  their  Iroquois  allies,  is  unmis- 
takably British.  With  its  solid  stone  buildings,  its 
narrow  fillet  of  blue  lake,  its  stone  fortifications  on 
the  foreshore,  and  its  rambling  streets,  it  reminded 
me  of  Southampton  town,  especially  before  South- 
ampton's Western  Shore  was  built  over.  Its  air  of 
being  a  British  seaport  arises  from  the  fact  that  it 


288    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

is  a  British  port,  for  it  was  actually  the  arsenal  and 
yard  for  the  naval  forces  on  the  Great  Lakes  during 
the  war  of  1812. 

And  it  also  gets  its  English  tone  from  the  Royal 
Military  College  which  exists  here.  The  bravest 
function  of  the  Prince's  visit  was  in  this  college, 
where  he  presented  colours  to  the  cadets  and  saw 
them  drill.  The  discipline  of  these  boys  on  parade 
is  worthy  of  Sandhurst,  Woolwich  or  West  Point, 
and  their  physique  is  equal  to,  if  not  better,  than 
any  shown  at  those  places.  It  is  not  exactly  a  mili- 
tary school,  though  the  training  is  military,  for 
though  some  of  the  cadets  join  Imperial  or  Cana- 
dian forces,  and  all  serve  for  a  time  in  the  Canadian 
iMilitia,  practically  all  the  boys  join  professions  or 
go  into  commerce  after  passing  through. 

The  Prince's  reception  at  the  college  was  fine, 
but  his  reception  in  the  town  itself  was  remarkable. 
The  Public  Park  was  black  with  people  at  the 
ceremony  of  welcome,  and  though  he  was  down  to 
"  kick  off  "  in  the  first  of  the  Association  League 
football  matches,  his  kick  off  was  actually  a  toss-up. 
That  was  the  only  way  to  get  the  ball  moving  in  the 
dense  throng  that  surged  between  the  goal  posts. 

Kingston,  too,  gave  the  Prince  the  degree  of  Doc- 
tor of  Laws.  It  is  a  proud  honour,  for  Kingston 
boasts  of  being  one  of  the  oldest  universities  in 
Canada.  But  though  its  tradition  is  old,  its  spirit  is 
modern  enough;  for  its  Chancellor  is  Mr.  E.  W. 
Beatty,  the  President  of  the  Canadian  Pacific  Rail- 
ways. It  was  from  the  Railway  President-Chan- 
cellor the  Prince  received  his  degree. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

MONTREAL 


THE  Prince  had  had  a  brief  but  lively  ex- 
perience of  Montreal  earlier  in  his  tour. 
It  was  but  a  hint  of  what  was  to  happen 
when  he  returned  on  Monday,  October  27th.  It  was 
not  merely  that  Montreal  as  the  biggest  and  richest 
city  in  Canada  had  set  itself  the  task  of  winding  up 
the  trip  in  befitting  manner;  there  was  that  about 
the  quality  of  its  entertainment  which  made  it  both 
startling  and  charming. 

Even  before  the  train  reached  Windsor  Station 
the  Prince  was  receiving  a  welcome  from  all  the 
smaller  towns  that  make  up  outlying  Montreal.  At 
these  places  the  habitant  Frenchmen  and  women 
crowded  about  the  observation  platform  of  the  train 
to  cry  their  friendliness  in  French,  where  English 
was  unknown.  And  the  friendliness  was  not  all  on 
the  side  of  the  habitants. 

"  They  tole  me,"  said  one  old  habitant  in  work- 
ingman  overalls,  "  they  tole  me  I  could  not  shake 
'is  han'.  So  I  walk  t'ro'  them,  Otii.  An  'e  see  me. 
A'  'e  put  out  'Is  'an',  an'  'e  laf  —  so.  I  tell  you 
'e's  a  real  feller,  de  kin'  that  shake  han'  wis  men  lak 
me. 

Montreal  itself  met  the  Prince  in  a  maze  of  con- 
fetti and  snow.     Montreal  was  showing  its  essential 

289 


290    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

self  by  a  happy  accident.  It  was  the  Montreal  of  old 
France,  gay  and  vivacious  and  full  of  colour  mated 
to  the  stern  stuff  of  Canada. 

It  is  true  there  was  not  very  much  snow,  merely 
a  fleck  of  it  in  the  air,  that  starred  the  wind-screens 
of  the  long  line  of  automobiles  that  formed  the  pro- 
cession; but  Canada  and  Montreal  are  not  all  snow, 
either.  It  was  as  though  the  native  spirit  of  the 
place  was  impressing  upon  us  the  feeling  that  un- 
derneath the  gaiety  we  were  encountering  there  was 
all  the  sternness  of  the  pioneers  that  had  made  this 
fine  town  the  splendid  place  it  Is. 

There  was  certainly  gaiety  in  the  air  on  that  day. 
The  Prince  drove  out  from  the  station  into  a  city 
of  cheering.  Mighty  crowds  were  about  the  sta- 
tion. Mighty  crowds  lined  the  great  squares  and 
the  long  streets  through  which  he  rode,  and  crowds 
filled  the  windows  of  sky-climbing  stores.  It  was  an 
animated  crowd.  It  expressed  itself  with  the  un- 
,aided  throat,  as  well  as  on  whistles  and  with  eerie 
noises  on  striped  paper  horns.  It  used  rattles  and 
it  used  sirens. 

And  mere  noise  being  not  enough,  it  loosed  its 
confetti.  As  the  Prince  drove  through  the  narrow 
canyon  of  the  business  streets,  confetti  was  tossed 
down  from  high  windows  by  the  bagful.  Streamers 
of  all  colours  shot  down  from  buildings  and  up  from 
the  sidewalks,  until  the  snakes  of  vivid  colour, 
skimming  and  uncoiling  across  the  street,  made  a 
bright  lattice  over  flagpole  and  telephone  wire,  a«nd, 
with  the  bright  flutter  of  the  flags,  gave  the  whole 
proceedings  a  vivid  and  carnival  air. 


Montreal  291 


Strips  of  coloured  paper  and  torn  letter  headings 
fluttered  down,  too,  and  in  such  masses  that  those 
who  were  responsible  must  have  got  rid  of  them  by 
the  shovelful.  Prince  and  car  were  very  quickly  en- 
tangled in  fluttering  strips  and  bright  streamers, 
that  snapped  and  fluttered  like  the  multi-tinted  tails 
of  comets  behind  him  as  he  sped. 

There  was  an  air  of  cheery  abandon  about  this 
whole-hearted  friendliness.  The  crowd  was  bright 
and  vivacious.  There  was  laughter  and  gaiety 
everywhere,  and  when  the  Prince  turned  a  corner, 
it  lifted  its  skirts  and  with  fresh  laughter  raced 
across  squares  and  along  side  streets  in  order  to  get 
another  ghmpse  of  this  "  real  feller." 

Bands  of  students,  Frenchmen  from  Laval  In  vel- 
vet berets,  and  English  from  McGill,  made  the  side- 
walks lively.  When  they  could,  they  rushed  the 
cars  of  the  procession  and  rode  in  thick  masses  on 
the  footboards  in  order  to  keep  up  with  the  Royal 
progress.  When  policemen  drove  them  off  foot- 
boards, they  waited  for  the  next  car  to  come  along 
and  got  on  to  the  footboards  of  that. 

When  the  Prince  went  into  the  City  Hall  they 
tried  to  take  the  City  Hall  by  storm,  and  succeeded, 
indeed,  in  clambering  on  to  all  those  places  where 
human  beings  should  not  go,  and  from  there  they 
sang  to  the  vast  crowd  waiting  for  the  exit  of  the 
Prince,  choosing  any  old  tunc  from  "  Oh,  Canada," 
in  French,  to  "  Johnny's  in  Town,"  in  polyglot. 

It  was  a  great  reception,  a  reception  with  electric- 
ity in  it.  A  reception  where  France  added  a  colour 
and  a  charm  to  Britain  and  made  it  irresistible. 


292    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

II 

And  It  was  only  a  sample,  that  reception. 

Tuesday,  Ottober  28th,  as  a  day,  was  tremen- 
dous. For  the  Prince  it  began  at  lunch,  but  a  lunch 
of  great  brilliance.  At  the  handsome  Place  Viger 
Hotel  he  was  again  the  centre  of  crowds.  Crowds 
waited  in  the  streets,  in  spite  of  the  greyness, 
the  damp  and  the  cold.  Crowds  filled  the  lobbies 
and  galleries  of  the  hotel  to  cheer  him  as  he 
came. 

In  the  great  dining-room  was  a  great  crowd,  a 
crowd  that  seemed  to  be  growing  out  of  a  wilder- 
ness of  flowers.  There  was  an  amazing  profusion 
and  beauty  of  flowers  all  through  that  room.  And 
not  merely  were  there  flowers  for  decoration,  but 
with  a  graceful  touch  the  Mayor  and  the  City 
Fathers,  who  gave  that  lunch,  had  set  a  perfect 
carnation  at  the  plate  of  every  guest  as  a  favour 
for  his  buttonhole. 

The  gathering  was  as  vivid  as  its  setting.  Gallic 
beards  wagged  amiably  In  answer  to  clean-shaven 
British  lips.  The  soutane  and  amethyst  cross  sat 
next  the  Anglican  apron  and  gaiters,  and  the  khaki 
of  two  tongues  had  war  experiences  on  one  front 
translated  by  an  Interpreter. 

It  was  an  eager  gathering  that  crowded  forward 
from  angles  of  the  room  or  stood  up  on  its  seats  in 
order  to  catch  every  word  the  Prince  uttered,  and  It 
could  not  cheer  warmly  enough  when  he  spoke  with 
real  feeling  of  the  mutual  respect  that  was  the  basis 
of  the  real  understanding  between  the  French-speak- 


Montreal  293 


ing  and  the  English-speaking  sections  of  the  Cana- 
dian natron. 

The  reality  of  that  mutual  respect  was  borne  out 
by  the  throngs  that  gathered  in  the  streets  when  the 
Prince  left  the  hotel.  It  was  through  a  mere  alley 
in  humanity  that  his  car  drove  to  La  Fontaine  Park, 
and  at  the  park  there  was  an  astonishing  gather- 
ing. 

In  the  centre  of  the  grass  were  several  thousand 
veteran  soldiers  who  had  served  in  the  war.  They 
were  of  all  arms,  from  Highlanders  to  Flying  Men, 
and,  ranked  in  battalions  behind  their  laurel- 
wreathed  standards,  they  made  a  magnificent  show- 
ing. Masses  of  wounded  soldiers  in  automobiles 
filled  one  side  of  the  great  square,  humanity  of  both 
sexes  overflowed  the  other  three  sides.  Ordinary 
methods  of  control  were  hopeless.  The  throng  of 
people  simply  submerged  all  signs  of  authority  and 
invaded  the  parade  ground  until  on  half  of  it  it  was 
impossible  to  distinguish  khaki  in  ranks  from  men 
and  women  and  children  sightseers  in  chaos. 

In  the  face  of  this  crowd  Montreal  had  to  invent  a 
new  method  of  authority.  The  mounted  men  hav- 
ing failed  to  press  the  spectators  back,  tanks  were 
loosed.  .  .  .  Ch,  not  the  grim,  steel  Tanks  of  the 
war  zone,  but  the  frail  and  mobile  Tanks  of  civiliza- 
tion —  motor-cycles.  The  motor-cycle  police  were 
sent  against  the  throng.  The  cycles,  with  their 
side-cars,  swept  down  on  the  mass,  charging  cleverly 
until  the  speeding  wheels  seemed  about  to  drive  into 
civilian  suitings.  Under  this  novel  method  of  round- 
ing up,  the  thick  wedges  of  people  were  broken  up; 


294    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

they  yielded   and   were   gradually   driven  back   to 
proper  position. 

Again  the  throngs  in  the  park  were  only  hints  of 
what  the  Prince  was  to  expect  in  his  drive  through 
the  town.  Leaving  the  grounds  and  turning  into  the 
long,  straight  and  broad  Sherbrooke  Street,  the  bon- 
net of  his  automobile  immediately  lodged  in  the 
thickets  of  crowds.  The  splendid  avenue  was  not 
big  enough  for  the  throngs  it  contained,  and  the  peo- 
ple filled  the  pavements  and  spread  right  across  the 
roadway. 

Slowly,  and  only  by  forcing  a  way  with  the  bonnet 
of  the  automobile,  could  the  police  drive  a  lane 
through  the  cheerful  mass.  The  ride  was  checked 
down  to  a  crawl,  and  as  he  neared  his  destination, 
the  Art  Gallery,  progress  became  a  matter  of  inches 
at  a  time  only.  It  was  a  mighty  crowd.  It  was  not 
unruly  or  stubborn;  it  checked  the  Prince's  progress 
simply  because  men  and  women  conform  to  ordinary 
laws  of  space,  and  it  was  physically  impossible  to 
squeeze  back  thirty  ranks  into  a  space  that  could 
contain  twenty  only. 

I  suppose  I  should  have  written  physically  un- 
comfortable, for  actually  a  narrow  strip,  the  width 
of  a  car  only,  was  driven  through  the  throng.  The 
people  were  jammed  so  tightly  back  that  when  the 
line  of  cars  stopped,  as  it  frequently  had  to,  the 
people  clambered  on  to  the  footboards  for  re- 
lief. 

In  front  of  the  classic  portico  of  the  Art  Gallery 
the  scene  was  amazing.  The  broad  street  was  a  sea 
of  heads.     Before  this  wedge  of  people  the  Prince's 


Montreal  295 


caR  was  stopped  dead.  Here  the  point  of  impossi- 
bility appeared  to  have  been  reached,  for  though  he 
was  to  ahght,  there  was  no  place  for  alighting,  and 
even  very  little  space  for  opening  the  door  of  the 
car.  It  was  only  by  fighting  that  the  poHce  got  him 
on  to  the  pavement  and  up  the  steps  of  the  gallery, 
and  though  the  crowd  was  extraordinarily  good- 
tempered,  the  scuffling  was  not  altogether  painless, 
for  in  that  heaving  mass  clothes  were  torn  and  shins 
were  barked  in  the  struggle. 

The  Prince  was  to  stand  at  the  top  of  the  steps  of 
the  Art  Gallery  to  take  the  salute  of  the  soldiers  he 
had  reviewed  in  La  Fontaine  Park,  as  they  swung 
past  in  a  Victory  March.  He  stood  there  for  over 
an  hour  waiting  for  them.  The  head  of  the  column 
had  started  immediately  after  he  had,  but  it  found 
the  difficulties  of  progress  even  more  apparent  than 
the  Prince.  The  long  column,  with  the  trophies  of 
captured  guns  and  machines  of  war,  could  only  press 
forward  by  fits  and  starts.  At  one  time  it  seemed 
impossible  that  the  veterans  would  ever  get  through 
the  pack  of  citizens,  and  word  was  given  that  the 
march  had  been  postponed.  But  by  slow  degrees 
the  column  forced  a  way  to  the  Art  Gallery,  and 
gave  the  Prince  the  salute  amid  enthusiasm  that  must 
remain  memorable  even  in  Montreal's  long  history 
of  splendid  memories. 

Ill 

Montreal  had  set  to  excel  itself  as  a  host,  and 
every  moment  of  the  Prince's  days  was  brilliantly 


296    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

filled.  There  were  vivid  receptions  and  splendid 
dances  at  the  Ritz-Carlton  Hotel  and  the  big  and 
comfortable  Hotel  Windsor.  Montreal  is  the 
centre  of  most  things  in  Canada;  in  it  are  the  head 
offices  of  the  great  railways  and  the  great  newspapers 
and  the  leading  financial  and  commercial  concerns. 
The  big  men  who  control  these  industries  are  hos- 
pitable with  a  large  gesture.  In  the  hands  of  these 
men,  not  only  the  Prince,  but  the  members  of  his 
entourage  had  a  royal  time. 

Personally,  though  I  found  Montreal  a  delightful 
city,  a  city  of  vividness  and  vivacity,  I  was,  in  one 
sense,  not  sorry  to  leave  it,  for  I  felt  myself  rapidly 
disintegrating  under  the  kindnesses  showered  upon 
us. 

This  kindness  had  its  valuable  experience :  it 
brought  us  into  contact  with  many  of  the  men  who 
are  helping  to  mould  the  future  of  Canada.  We 
met  such  capable  minds  as  those  who  are  responsible 
for  the  organization  of  such  great  companies  as  the 
Canadian  Pacific  and  the  Grand  Trunk  Railways. 
We  met  many  of  the  great  and  brilliant  newspaper 
men,  such  as  Senator  White,  of  the  Montreal 
Gazette,  who  with  his  exceedingly  able  right-hand 
man.  Major  John  Bassett,  was  our  good  friend  al- 
ways and  our  host  many  times.  All  these  men  are 
undoubtedly  forces  in  the  future  of  Canada.  We 
were  able  to  get  from  them  a  juster  estimate  of 
Canada,  her  prospects  and  her  potentialities,  than 
we  could  have  obtained  by  our  unaided  observation. 
And,  more,  we  got  from  contact  with  such  men  as 
these  an  appreciation  of  the  splendid  qualities  that 


M  012  f  real  297 


make  the  Canadian  citizen  so  definite  a  force  in  the 
present  and  future  of  the  world. 

IV 

During  his  stay  in  Montreal  the  Prince  was 
brought  in  contact  with  every  phase  of  civic  life. 
On  Wednesday,  October  29th,  he  went  by  train 
through  the  outlying  townships  on  Montreal  Island, 
calling  at  the  quaint  and  beautifully  decorated  vil- 
lages of  the  habitants,  that  usually  bear  the  names 
of  old  French  saints.  The  inhabitants  of  these 
places,  though  said  to  be  taciturn  and  undemonstra- 
tive, met  the  train  in  crowds,  and  in  crowds  jostled 
to  get  at  the  Prince  and  shake  his  hand,  and  they 
showed  particular  delight  when  he  addressed  them 
in   their   own   tongue. 

On  Thursday,  October  30th,  the  Prince  drove 
about  Montreal  itself,  going  to  the  docks  where 
ocean-going  ships  lie  at  deep-water  quays  under  the 
towering  elevators  and  the  giant  loading  gear. 
Amid  college  yells,  French  and  English,  he  toured 
through  the  great  universities  of  Laval  and  McGill 
—  famous  for  learning  and  Stephen  Leacock.  He 
also  toured  the  districts  where  the  working  man  lives, 
holding  informal  receptions  there. 

He  opened  athletic  clubs  and  went  to  dances.  At 
the  balls  he  was  at  once  the  friend  of  everybody  by 
his  zest  for  dancing  and  his  delightfully  human  habit 
of  playing  truant  in  order  to  sit  out  on  the  stairs 
with  bright  partners. 

As  ever  his  thoughtfulness  and  tact  created  leg- 


298    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

ends.  I  was  told,  and  I  believe  it  to  be  true,  that 
after  one  dinner  he  was  to  drive  straight  to  a  big 
dance;  but,  hearing  that  a  great  number  of  people 
had  collected  along  the  route  to  the  Ritz-Carlton 
Hotel  where  he  was  staying,  under  the  impression 
that  he  was  to  return  there,  he  gave  orders  that  his 
car  was  to  go  to  the  hotel  before  going  to  the  dance. 
It  was  an  unpleasant  night,  and  the  drive  took  him 
considerably  out  of  his  way;  but,  rather  than  disap- 
point the  people  who  had  gathered  waiting,  he  took 
the  roundabout  journey  —  and  he  took  it  standing 
in  his  car  so  that  the  people  could  see  him  in  the 
light  of  the  lamps. 

It  was  at  Montreal,  too,  that  the  Prince  went  to 
his  first  theatrical  performance  in  Canada.  A  great 
and  bright  gala  performance  on  music-hall  lines  had 
been  arranged  at  one  of  the  principal  theatres,  and 
this  the  Prince  attended.  The  audience  with  some 
restraint  watched  him  as  he  sat  in  his  box,  wonder- 
ing what  their  attitude  should  be.  But  a  joke  sent 
him  off  in  a  tremendous  laugh,  and  all,  realizing  that 
he  was  there  to  enjoy  himself,  joined  with  him  in 
that  enjoyment.  He  declared  as  he  left  the  theatre 
that  it  was  "  A  scrumptious  show." 


V 

On  Sunday,  November  3rd,  Montreal,  after  wind- 
ing up  the  tour  with  a  mighty  week,  gave  the  Prince 
a  mighty  send-off.  Officially  the  tour  in  Canada 
was  ended,  though  there  were  two  or  three  ex- 
traordinary functions  to  be  filled  at  Toronto  and 


Montreal  299 


Ottawa.  The  chief  of  these  was  at  Toronto  on 
Tuesday,  November  4th,  when  the  Prince  made  the 
most  impressive  speech  of  the  whole  tour  at  Massey 
Hall. 

This  hall  was  packed  with  one  of  the  keenest 
audiences  the  Prince  had  faced  in  Canada.  It  was 
made  up  of  members  of  the  Canadian  and  Empire 
Clubs,  and  every  man  there  was  a  leader  in  business. 
It  was  both  a  critical  gathering  and  an  acute  one. 
It  would  take  nothing  on  trust,  yet  it  could  appreci- 
ate every  good  point.  This  audience  the  Prince  won 
completely. 

It  was  the  longest  speech  the  Prince  had  made, 
yet  he  never  spoke  better;  he  had  both  mastered 
his  nervousness  and  his  need  for  notes.  Decrying 
his  abilities  as  an  orator,  he  yet  won  his  hearing  by 
his  very  lack  of  oratorical  affectation. 

He  spoke  very  earnestly  of  the  wonderful  recep- 
tion he  had  had  throughout  the  breadth  of  Canada, 
from  every  type  of  Canadian  —  a  reception,  he  said, 
which  he  was  not  conceited  enough  to  Imagine  was 
given  to  himself  personally,  but  to  him  as  heir  to 
the  British  throne  and  to  the  ideal  which  that  throne 
stood  for.  The  throne,  he  pointed  out,  consolidated 
the  democratic  tradition  of  the  Empire,  because  it 
was  a  focus  for  all  men  and  races,  for  it  was  outside 
parties  and  politics;  it  was  a  bond  which  held  all 
men  together.  The  Empire  of  which  the  throne 
was  the  focal  point  was  different  from  other  and 
ancient  Empires.  The  Empires  of  Greece  and 
Rome  were  composed  of  many  states  owing  alle- 
giance to  the  mother  state.     That  ideal  was  now 


300    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

obsolete.  The  British  Empire  was  a  single  state 
composed  of  many  nations  which  give  allegiance  not 
so  much  to  the  mother  country,  but  to  the  great 
common  system  of  life  and  government.  That  is, 
the  Dominions  were  no  longer  Colonies  but  sister 
nations  of  the  British  Empire. 

Every  point  of  this  telling  speech  was  acutely 
realized  and  immediately  applauded,  though  perhaps 
the  warmest  applause  came  after  the  Prince's  defini- 
tion of  the  Empire,  and  after  his  declaration  that,  In 
visiting  the  United  States  of  America,  he  regarded 
himself  not  only  as  an  Englishman  but  as  a  Canadian 
and  a  representative  of  the  whole  Empire. 

In  a  neat  and  concise  speech  the  Chairman  of  the 
meeting  had  already  summed  up  the  meaning  and 
effect  of  the  Prince's  visit  to  Canada.  The  Prince, 
he  said,  had  passed  through  Canada  on  a  wave  of 
enthusiasm  that  had  swept  throughout  and  had  dom- 
inated the  country.  That  enthusiasm  could  have 
but  one  effect,  that  of  deepening  and  enriching  Can- 
adian loyalty  to  the  Crown,  and  giving  a  new  sense 
of  solidarity  among  the  people  of  Canada.  "  Our 
Indian  compatriots,"  he  concluded,  "  with  pictur- 
esque aptness  have  acclaimed  the  Prince  as  Chief 
Morning  Star.  That  name  Is  well  and  prophetically 
chosen.  His  visit  will  usher  in  for  Canada  a  new 
day  full  of  wide-flung  Influence  and  high  achieve- 
ments." 

This  summary  Is  the  best  comment  on  the  reason 
and  effect  of  the  tour. 


M  071  treat  301 


VI 

The  last  phase  of  this  truly  remarkable  tour 
through  Canada  was  staged  in  Ottawa.  As  far  as 
ceremonial  went,  it  was  entirely  quiet,  though  the 
Prince  made  this  an  occasion  for  receiving  and  thank- 
ing those  Canadians  whose  work  had  helped  to  make 
his  visit  a  success.  Apart  from  this,  the  Prince  spent 
restful  and  recreative  days  at  Government  House, 
In  preparation  for  the  strenuous  time  he  was  to  have 
across  the  American  border. 

But  before  he  reached  Ottawa  there  was  just  one 
small  ceremony  that,  on  the  personal  side,  fittingly 
brought  the  long  travel  through  Canada  to  an  end. 
At  a  siding  near  Colburn  on  the  Ottawa  road  the 
train  was  stopped,  and  the  Prince  personally  thanked 
the  whole  staff  of  "  this  wonderful  train  "  for  the 
splendid  service  they  had  rendered  throughout  the 
trip.  It  was,  he  said,  a  record  of  magnificent  team 
work,  In  which  every  individual  had  worked  with  un- 
tiring and  unfailing  efficiency. 

He  made  his  thanks  not  only  general  but  also  in- 
dividual, for  he  shook  hands  with  every  member  of 
the  train  team;  chefs  in  white  overalls,  conductors 
in  uniform,  photographers,  the  engineers  in  jeans 
and  peaked  caps,  waiters,  clerks,  negro  porters  and 
every  man  who  had  helped  to  make  that  journey  so 
marked  an  achievement,  passed  before  him  to  re- 
ceive his  thanks. 

And  when  this  was  accomplished  the  Prince  him- 
self took  over  the  train  for  a  spell.  He  became  the 
engine-driver. 


302    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

He  mounted  into  the  cab  and  drove  the  engine  for 
eighteen  miles,  donning  the  leather  gauntlets  (which 
every  man  In  Canada  who  does  dirty  work  wears), 
and  manipulating  the  levers.  Starting  gingerly  at 
first,  he  soon  had  the  train  bowling  along  merrily  at 
a  speed  that  would  have  done  credit  to  an  old  pro- 
fessional. 

At  Flavelle  the  usual  little  crowd  had  gathered 
ready  to  surround  the  rear  carriage.  To  their  as- 
tonishment, they  found  the  Prince  in  the  cab,  wav- 
ing his  hat  out  of  the  window  at  them,  enjoying 
both  their  surprise  and  his  own  achievement. 

On  Wednesday,  November  5th,  the  journey  ended 
at  Ottawa,  and  the  train  was  broken  up  to  our  in- 
tense regret.  For  us  it  had  been  a  train-load  of 
good  friends,  and  though  many  were  to  accompany 
us  to  America,  many  were  not,  and  we  felt  the  part- 
ing. Among  those  who  came  South  with  us  was 
our  good  friend  "  Chief "  Chamberlain,  who  had 
been  In  control  of  the  C.P.R.  police  responsible  for 
the  Prince's  safety  throughout  the  trip.  He  was 
one  of  the  most  genial  cosmopolitans  of  the  world, 
with  the  real  Canadian  genius  for  friendship  —  in- 
deed so  many  friends  had  he,  that  the  Prince  of 
Wales  expressed  the  opinion  that  Canada  was  popu- 
lated by  seven  million  people,  mainly  friends  of  "  the 
Chief." 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

WASHINGTON 


MY  own  first  real  Impression  of  the  United 
States  lay  In  my  sorrow  that  I  had  been 
betrayed  into  winter  underclothing. 

When  the  Prince  left  Ottawa  on  the  afternoon  of 
November  loth  in  the  President's  train,  the  weather 
was  bitterly  cold.  I  suppose  It  was  bitterly  cold  for 
most  of  the  run  south,  but  an  American  train  does 
not  allow  a  hint  of  such  a  thing  to  penetrate.  The 
train  was  steam-heated  to  a  point  to  which  I  had 
never  been  trained.  And  at  Washington  the  station 
was  steam-heated  and  the  hotel  was  steam-heated, 
and  Washington  itself  was,  for  that  moment,  on  the 
steam-heated  latitude.  America,  I  felt,  had  rather 
"  put  it  over  on  me." 

It  was  at  8. 20  on  the  night  of  Monday  the  loth 
that  the  Prince  entered  the  United  States  at  the  little 
station  of  Rouses  Point.  There  was  very  little  cere- 
mony, and  it  took  only  the  space  of  time  to  change 
our  engine  of  Canada  to  an  engine  of  America.  But 
the  short  ceremony  under  the  arc  lamps,  and  In  the 
centre  a  small  crowd,  had  attraction  and  significance. 

On  the  platform  were  drawn  up  ranks  of  khaki 
men,  but  khaki  men  with  a  new  note  to  us.  It  was  a 
guard  of  honour  of  "  Doughboys,"  stocky  and  use- 

303 


304    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

ful-looking  fellows,  in  their  stetsons  and  gaiters. 
Close  to  them  was  a  band  of  American  girls,  hold- 
ing as  a  big  canopy  the  Union  Jack  and  the  Stars 
and  Stripes  joined  together  to  make  one  flag,  joined 
in  one  piece  to  signify  the  meeting-place  of  the  two 
Anglo-Saxon  peoples  also. 

With  this  company  were  the  officials  who  had  come 
to  welcome  the  Prince  at  the  border.  They  were 
led  by  Mr.  Lansing,  the  Secretary  of  State,  Major- 
General  Biddle,  who  commanded  the  Americans  in 
England,  and  who  was  to  be  the  Prince's  Military 
aide,  and  Admiral  Niblack,  who  was  to  be  the  Naval 
aide  while  the  Prince  was  the  guest  of  the  United 
States. 

The  Prince  in  a  Guard's  greatcoat  greeted  his  new 
friends,  and  inspected  the  Doughboys,  laughing  back 
at  the  crowd  when  some  one  called:  "  Good  for  you. 
Prince."  To  the  ladies  who  held  the  twin  flags  he 
also  expressed  his  thanks,  telling  them  it  was  very 
nice  of  them  to  come  out  on  so  cold  a  night  to  meet 
him.  Feminine  America  was,  for  an  instant,  non- 
plussed, and  found  nothing  to  answer.  But  their 
vivacity  quickly  came  back  to  them,  and  they  very 
quickly  returned  the  friendliness  and  smiles  of  the 
Prince,  shook  his  hand  and  wished  him  the  happiest 
of  visits  in  their  country. 

The  interchange  of  nationalities  in  engines  being 
effected,  the  train  swung  at  a  rapid  pace  beside  the 
waters  of  Lake  Champlain,  pushing  south  along  the 
old  marching  route  into  and  out  of  Canada. 

On  the  morning  of  November  nth  it  was  raining 
heavily  and  the  train  ran  through  a  depressing  grey- 


Washijjgton  305 


ness.  We  were  all  eager  to  see  America,  and  see  her 
at  her  best,  but  a  train  journey,  especially  in  wet 
weather,  shows  a  country  at  its  worst.  The  short 
stops,  for  instance,  in  the  stations  of  great  cities 
like  Philadelphia  and  Baltimore  were  the  sort  of 
things  to  give  a  false  impression.  The  stations 
themselves  were  empty,  a  novelty  to  us,  who  had 
had  three  months  of  crowded  stations,  and,  also, 
about  these  stations  we  saw  slums,  for  the  first  time 
on  this  Western  continent.  After  having  had  the 
conviction  grow  up  within  me  that  this  Continent 
was  the  land  of  comely  and  decent  homes,  the  sight 
of  these  drab  areas  and  bad  roads  was,  personally, 
a  shock.  Big  and  old  cities  find  it  hard  to  eliminate 
slums,  but  it  seemed  to  me  that  it  would  be  merely 
good  business  to  remove  such  places  from  out  of 
sight  of  the  railways,  and  to  plan  town  approaches 
on  a  more  impressive  scale.  America  certainly  can 
plan  buildings  on  an  impressive  scale.  It  has  the 
gift  of  architecture. 

The  train  went  through  to  Washington  in  what 
was  practically  a  non-stop  run,  and  arrived  in  the 
rain.  The  Prince  was  received  in  the  rain  at  the 
back  of  the  train,  though  that  reception  was  trun- 
cated, so  that  the  great  Americans  who  were  there 
to  meet  him  could  be  presented  in  the  dryness  under 
the  station  roof. 

Heading  the  group  of  notable  men  who  met  the 
Prince  was  the  Vice-President,  Mr.  Marshall,  and 
with  him  was  the  British  Ambassador,  Lord  Grey, 
and  General  Pershing,  a  popular  figure  with  the 
waiting  crowd  and  a  hero  regarded  with  rapture  by 


3o6    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

American  young  womanhood  —  which  was  willing 
to  break  the  Median  regulations  of  the  American 
police  to  get  "  just  one  look  at  him." 

Outside  the  station  there  was  a  vast  crowd  of 
American  men  and  women  who  had  braved  the  down- 
pour to  give  the  Prince  a  welcome  of  that  peculiarly 
generous  quality  which  we  quickly  learnt  was  the 
natural  expression  of  the  American  feeling  towards 
guests. 

I  was  told,  too,  that  crowds  along  the  streets 
caught  up  that  very  cheerful  greeting,  so  that  all 
through  his  ride  along  the  beautiful  streets  to  the 
Belmont  House  in  New  Hampshire  Avenue,  which 
was  to  be  his  home  in  Washington,  the  Prince  was 
made  aware  of  the  hospitality  extended  to  him. 

But  of  this  fact  I  can  only  speak  from  hearsay. 
The  Press  Correspondents  were  unable  to  follow 
His  Royal  Highness  through  the  city.  We  were 
told  that  a  car  was  to  be  placed  at  our  disposal,  as 
one  had  been  elsewhere,  and  we  were  asked  to  wait 
our  turn.  Wait  we  certainly  did,  until  the  last 
junior  attache  had  been  served.  By  that  time,  how- 
ever, His  Royal  Highness  had  outdistanced  us,  for, 
without  a  car  and  without  being  able  to  join  the 
procession  at  an  early  interval,  we  lost  touch  with 
happenings. 

By  the  time  we  were  able  to  get  on  to  the  route 
the  streets  were  deserted;  all  we  could  do  was  to 
admire  through  the  rain  the  architecture  of  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  cities  of  the  world. 

Apart  from  the  rain  on  the  first  day,  there  was  an- 
other factor  which  handicapped  Washington  in  its 


Washington  307 


welcome  to  the  Prince  —  the  warmth  of  which  could 
not  be  doubted  when  it  had  opportunity  for  adequate 
expression.  This  was  the  fact  that  no  program 
of  his  doings  was  published.  For  some  reason  which 
I  do  not  pretend  to  understand,  the  time-table  of  his 
comings  and  goings  about  the  city  was  not  issued  to 
the  Press,  so  that  the  people  of  Washington  had  but 
vague  ideas  of  where  to  see  him.  The  Washington 
journalists  protested  to  us  that  this  was  unfair  to  a 
city  that  has  such  a  great  and  just  reputation  for  its 
public  hospitality. 

However,  where  the  Prince  and  the  Washington 
people  did  come  together  there  was  an  immediate 
and  mutual  regard.  There  was  just  such  a  "  mix- 
ing "  that  evening,  when  he  visited  the  National 
Press  Club. 

He  had  spent  the  day  quietly,  receiving  and  re- 
turning calls.  One  of  these  calls  was  upon  President 
Wilson  at  the  White  House,  the  Prince  driving 
through  this  city  of  an  ideal  in  architecture  come 
true,  to  spend  ten  minutes  with  Mrs.  Wilson  in  a 
visit  of  courtesy. 

The  National  Press  Club  at  Washington  is  prob- 
ably unique  of  its  kind.  I  don't  mean  by  that  that 
It  is  comfortable  and  attractive;  all  American  and 
Canadian  clubs  are  supremely  comfortable  and  at- 
tractive, for  in  this  Continent  clubs  have  been  exalted 
to  the  plane  of  a  gracious  and  fine  art;  I  mean  that 
the  spirit  of  the  club  gave  it  a  distinguished  and 
notable  quality. 

America  being  a  country  extremely  interested  In 
politics  —  Americans  enter  into  politics  as  English- 


3c8    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

men  enter  Into  cricket  —  and  Washington  being  the 
vibrant  centre  of  that  Intense  political  concern,  the 
most  acute  brains  of  the  American  news  world  natu- 
rally gravitate  to  the  Capital.  The  National  Press 
Club  at  Washington  is  a  club  of  experts.  Its  mem- 
bership is  made  up  of  men  whose  keen  intelligence, 
brilliance  in  craft  and  devotion  to  their  calling  has 
lifted  them  to  the  top  of  the  tree  in  their  own  par- 
ticular metier. 

There  was  about  these  men  that  extraordinary 
zest  in  work  and  every  detail  of  that  work  that  is 
the  secret  of  American  driving  power.  With  them, 
and  with  every  other  American  I  came  Into  contact 
with,  I  felt  that  work  was  attacked  with  something 
of  the  joy  of  the  old  craftsman.  My  own  impres- 
sion after  a  short  stay  in  America  is  that  the  Ameri- 
can works  no  harder,  and  perhaps  not  so  hard  as  the 
average  Briton;  but  he  works  with  infinitely  more 
zest,  and  that  Is  what  makes  him  the  dangerous  fel- 
low In  competition  that  he  Is. 

The  Prince  had  met  many  journalists  at  Belmont 
House  In  the  morning,  and  had  very  readily  accepted 
an  Invitation  to  visit  them  at  their  club,  and  after 
dinner  he  came  not  into  this  den  of  lions,  but  into  a 
den  of  Daniels  —  a  condition  very  trying  for  lions. 
Arriving  in  evening  dress,  his  youth  seemed  accentu- 
ated among  so  many  shrewd  fellows,  who  were  there 
obviously  not  to  take  him  or  any  one  for  granted. 

From  the  outset  his  frankness  and  entire  lack  of 
affectation  created  the  best  of  atmospheres,  and  in  a 
minute  or  two  his  sense  of  humour  had  made  all  there 
his  friends.     Having  met  a  few  of  the  journalist 


Washington  30Q 


corps  in  the  morning,  he  now  expressed  a  wish  to 
meet  them  all.  The  President  of  the  Club  raised 
his  eyebrows,  and,  indicating  the  packed  room,  sug- 
gested that  "  all  "  was,  perhaps,  a  large  order.  The 
Prince  merely  laughed :  "  All  I  ask  is  that  you  don't 
grip  too  hard,"  he  said,  and  he  shook  hands  with  and 
spoke  to  every  member  present. 

The  Prince  certainly  made  an  excellent  impression 
upon  men  able  to  judge  the  quality  of  character  with- 
out being  dazzled  by  externals,  and  many  definite 
opinions  were  expressed  after  he  left  concerning  his 
modesty,  his  manliness  and  his  faculty  for  being 
"  a  good  mixer,"  which  is  the  faculty  Americans 
most  admire. 

II 

Wednesday,  November  13th,  was  a  busy  day. 
The  Prince  was  out  early  driving  through  the  beauti- 
ful avenues  of  the  city  in  a  round  of  functions. 

Washington  is  one  of  the  most  attractive  of  cities 
to  drive  in.  It  is  a  city,  one  imagines,  built  to  be 
the  place  where  the  architects'  dreams  come  true. 
It  has  the  air  of  being  a  place  where  the  designer 
has  been  able  to  work  at  his  best;  climate  and  a 
clarified  air,  natural  beauty  and  the  approbation  of 
brother  men  have  all  conspired  to  help  and  stimulate. 

It  has  scores  of  beautiful  and  magnificently  pro- 
portioned buildings,  each  obviously  the  work  of  a 
fine  artist,  and  practically  every  one  of  those  build- 
ings has  been  placed  on  a  site  as  effective  and  as 
appropriate  as  its  design.  That,  perhaps,  was  a 
simple  matter,  for  the  whole  town  had  been  planned 


310    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

with  a  splendid  art.  Its  broad  avenues  and  its  de- 
lightful parks  fit  in  to  the  composite  whole  with  an 
exquisite  justness.  Its  residences  have  the  same 
charm  of  excellent  craftsmanship  one  appreciates  in 
the  classic  public  buildings;  they  are  mellow  in 
colouring,  behind  their  screen  of  trees;  nearly  all 
are  true  and  fine  in  line,  while  some  —  an  Italianate 
house  on,  I  think,  15th  Avenue,  which  is  the  property 
of  Mr.  McLean  of  the  Washington  Post,  is  one  — 
are  supremely  beautiful. 

The  air  of  the  city  is  astonishingly  clear,  and  the 
grave  white  buildings  of  the  Public  Offices,  the 
splendid  white  aspiration  of  the  skyscrapers,  have 
a  sparkling  quality  that  shows  them  to  full  advan- 
tage. There  may,  of  course,  be  more  beautiful 
cities  than  Washington,  but  certainly  Washington 
is  beautiful  enough. 

The  streets  have  an  exhilaration.  There  is  an  in- 
tense activity  of  humanity.  Automobiles  there  are, 
of  course,  by  the  thousand,  parked  everywhere,  with 
policemen  strolling  round  to  chalk  times  on  them, 
or  to  impound  those  cars  that  previous  chalk-marks 
show  to  have  been  parked  beyond  the  half-hour  or 
hour  of  grace.  The  sidewalks  are  vivid  with  the 
shuttling  of  the  smartest  of  women,  women  who 
choose  their  clothes  with  a  crispness,  a  flair  of  their 
own,  and  which  owes  very  little  to  other  countries, 
and  carry  them  and  themselves  with  a  vivid  exquisite- 
ness  that  gives  them  an  undeniable  individuality. 
The  stores  are  as  the  Canadian  stores,  only  there 
are  more  of  them,  and  they  are  bigger.  Their 
windows  make  a  dado  of  attractiveness  along  the 


1 


m 


Washington  311 


streets,  but,  all  the  same,  I  do  not  think  the  windows 
are  dressed  quite  as  well  as  in  London,  and  I'm 
nearly  sure  not  so  well  as  in  Canada  —  but  this  is 
a  mere  masculine  opinion. 

Through  this  attractive  city  the  Prince  drove  in  a 
round  of  ceremonies.  His  first  call  was  at  the  Head- 
quarters of  the  American  Red  Cross,  then  wrung 
Vv'ith  the  fervours  of  a  "  tag  "  week  of  collecting. 
From  here  he  went  to  the  broad,  sweet  park  beside 
the  Potomac,  where  a  noble  memorial  was  being 
erected  to  the  memory  of  Lincoln.  This,  as  might 
be  expected  from  this  race  of  fine  builders,  is  an 
admirable  Greek  structure  admirably  situated  in  the 
green  of  the  park  beside  the  river. 

The  Prince  went  over  the  building,  and  gained 
an  idea  of  what  it  would  be  like  on  completion  from 
the  plans.  He  also  surprised  his  guides  by  his  in- 
timate knowledge  of  Lincoln's  life  and  his  intense 
admiration  for  him. 

At  the  hospital,  shortly  after,  he  visited  two 
thousand  of  "  My  comrades  in  arms,"  as  he  called 
them.  Outside  the  hospital  on  the  lawns  were  many 
men  who  had  been  wounded  at  Chateau  Thierry, 
some  in  wheeled  chairs.  Seeing  them,  the  Prince 
swung  aside  from  his  walk  to  the  hospital  entrance 
and  chatted  with  them,  before  entering  the  wards 
to  speak  with  others  of  the  wounded  men. 

On  leaving  the  hospital  he  was  held  up.  A  Red 
Cross  nurse  ran  up  to  him  and  "  tagged  "  him,  plant- 
ing the  little  Red  Cross  button  in  his  coat  and  de- 
claring that  the  Prince  was  enrolled  in  the  District 
Chapter.     The     Prince    very    promptly    countered 


312    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

with  a  dollar  bill,  the  official  subscription,  saying 
that  his  enrolment  must  be  done  in  proper  style  and 
on  legal  terms. 

In  the  afternoon,  the  Prince  utilized  his  free  time 
in  making  a  call  on  the  widow  of  Admiral  Dewey, 
spending  a  few  minutes  in  interesting  conversation 
with  her. 

The  evening  was  given  over  to  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  scenes  of  the  whole  tour.  At  the  head  of 
the  splendid  staircase  of  white  marble  in  the  Con- 
gress Library  he  held  a  reception  of  all  the  members 
of  the  Senate  and  the  House  of  Representatives, 
their  wives  and  their  families. 

Even  to  drive  to  such  a  reception  was  to  experi- 
ence a  thrill. 

As  the  Prince  drove  down  the  straight  and  end- 
less avenues  that  strike  directly  through  Washington 
to  the  Capitol,  like  spokes  to  the  hub  of  a  vast  wheel, 
he  saw  that  immense,  classic  building  shining  above 
the  city  in  the  sky.  In  splendid  and  austere  white- 
ness the  Capitol  rises  terrace  upon  terrace  above  the 
trees,  its  columns,  its  cornices  and  its  dome  blanched 
in  the  cold  radiance  of  scores  of  arc  lights  hidden 
among  the  trees. 

Like  fireflies  attracted  to  this  centre  of  light,  cars 
moved  their  sparkling  points  of  brightness  down  the 
vivid  avenues,  and  at  the  vestibule  of  the  Library, 
which  lies  in  the  grounds  apart  from  the  Capitol, 
set  down  fit  denizens  for  this  kingdom  of  radiance. 

Senators  and  parliamentarians  generally  are  sober 
entities,  but  wives  and  daughters  made  up  for  them 
in  colour  and  in  comeliness.     In  cloth  of  gold,  in 


f 


Washington  313 


brocades,  in  glowing  satin  and  flashing  silk,  multi- 
coloured and  ever-shifting,  a  stream  of  jewelled 
vivacity  pressed  up  the  severe  white  marble  stairs 
in  the  severe  white  marble  hall.  There  could  not 
have  been  a  better  background  for  such  a  shining 
and  pulsating  mass  of  living  colour.  There  was  no 
distraction  from  that  warm  beauty  of  moving  human- 
ity; the  flowers,  too,  were  severe,  severe  and  white; 
great  masses  of  white  chrysanthemums  were  all  that 
was  needed,  were  all  that  was  there. 

And  at  the  head  of  the  staircase  a  genius  in  design 
had  made  one  stroke  of  colour,  one  stroke  of  astound- 
ing and  poignant  scarlet.  On  this  scarlet  carpet  the 
Prince  in  evening  dress  stood  and  encountered  the 
tide  of  guests  that  came  up  to  him,  were  received  by 
him,  and  flowed  away  from  him  in  a  thousand  par- 
ticles and  drops  of  colour,  as  women,  with  all  the 
vivacity  of  their  clothes  in  their  manner,  and  men  in 
uniforms  or  evening  dress,  striving  to  keep  pace 
with  them,  went  drifting  through  the  high,  clear 
purity  of  the  austere  corridors. 

It  was  a  scene  of  infinite  charm.  It  was  a  scene 
of  infinite  significance,  also.  For  close  to  the  Prince 
as  he  stood  and  received  the  men  and  women  of 
America,  were  many  original  documents  dealing  with 
the  separation  of  England  and  the  American  colonies. 
There  was  much  in  the  fact  that  a  Prince  of  England 
should  be  receiving  the  descendants  of  those  colonies 
in  such  surroundings,  and  meeting  those  descendants 
with  a  friendliness  and  frankness  which  equalled 
their  own  frank  friendliness. 


314    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

HI 

Thursday,  November  14th,  was  a  day  of  extreme 
interest  for  the  Prince.  It  was  the  day  when  he 
visited  the  home  of  the  first  President  of  America, 
and  also  visited,  in  his  home,  the  President  in  power 
today. 

The  morning  was  given  over  to  an  investiture  of 
the  American  officers  and  nurses  who  had  won  British 
honours  during  the  war.  It  was  held  at  Belmont 
House,  and  was  a  ceremony  full  of  colour.  Mem- 
bers of  all  the  diplomatic  corps  in  Washington  in 
their  various  uniforms  attended,  and  these  were 
grouped  in  the  beautiful  ballroom  full  of  splendid 
pictures  and  wonderful  china.  The  simplicity  of 
the  investiture  itself  stood  out  against  the  colourful 
setting  as  generals  in  khaki,  admirals  in  blue,  the 
rank  and  file  of  both  services,  and  the  neat  and 
picturesque  Red  Cross  nurses  came  quietly  across 
the  polished  floor  to  receive  their  decorations  and 
a  comradely  hand-clasp  from  the  Prince. 

It  was  after  lunch  that  the  Prince  motored  out  to 
Mount  Vernon,  the  home  and  burial-place  of  Wash- 
ington, to  pay  his  tribute  to  the  great  leader  of  the 
first  days  of  America.  It  is  a  serene  and  beautiful 
old  house,  built  in  the  colonial  style,  with  a  pillared 
verandah  along  its  front.  The  visit  here  was  of 
the  simplest  kind. 

At  the  modest  tomb  of  the  great  general  and 
statesman,  which  is  near  the  house,  the  Prince  in 
silence  deposited  a  wreath,  and  a  little  distance  away 
he  also  planted  a  cedar  to  commemorate  his  visit. 


Washington  315' 


He  showed  his  usual  keen  curiosity  in  the  house, 
whose  homely  rooms  of  mellow  colonial  furniture 
seemed  as  though  they  might  be  filled  at  any  mo- 
ment with  gentlemen  in  hessians  and  brave  coats, 
whose  hair  was  in  queues  and  whose  accents  would  be 
loud  and  rich  in  condemnation  of  the  interference 
of  the  Court  Circle  overseas. 

Showing  interest  in  the  historic  details  of  the 
house,  the  picture  of  his  grandfather  abruptly  filled 
him  with  anxiety.  He  looked  at  the  picture  and 
asked  if  "Baron  Renfrew"  (King  Edward)  had 
worn  a  top  hat  on  his  visit,  and  from  his  nervousness 
it  seemed  that  he  felt  that  his  own  soft  felt  hat  was 
not  quite  the  thing.  He  was  reassured,  however, 
on  this  point,  for  democracy  has  altered  many  things 
since  the  old  days,  including  hats. 

Both  on  his  way  out,  and  his  return  journey,  the 
Prince  was  the  object  of  enthusiasm  from  small 
groups  who  recognized  him,  most  of  whom  had 
trusted  to  luck  or  their  intuition  for  their  chance  of 
seeing  him.  About  the  entrance  of  the  White  House, 
to  which  he  drove,  there  was  a  small  and  ardent 
crowd,  which  cheered  him  when  he  swept  through 
the  gates  with  his  motor-cycle  escort,  and  bought 
photographs  of  him  from  hawkers  when  he 
had  passed.  The  hawker,  in  fact,  did  a  brisk 
trade. 

There  had  been  much  speculation  whether  His 
Royal  Highness  would  be  able  to  see  President  Wil- 
son at  all,  for  he  was  yet  confined  to  his  bed.  The 
doctors  decided  for  it,  and  there  was  a  very  pleas- 
ant meeting  which  seems  to  have  helped  the  Presi- 


3i6    Westward  with  the  Fnnce  of  Wales 

dent  to  renew  his  good  spirits  In  the  youthful  charm 
of  his  visitor. 

After  taking  tea  with  Mrs.  Wilson,  His  Royal 
Highness  went  up  to  the  room  of  the  President  on 
the  second  floor,  and  Mr.  Wilson,  propped  up  in 
bed,  received  him.  The  friendship  that  had  begun 
in  England  was  quickly  renewed,  and  soon  both  were 
laughing  over  the  Prince's  experiences  on  his  tour 
and  "  swopping  "  impressions. 

Mr.  Wilson's  instinctive  vein  of  humour  came 
back  to  him  under  the  pleasure  of  the  reunion,  and 
he  pointed  out  to  the  Prince  that  if  he  was  ill  in 
bed,  he  had  taken  the  trouble  to  be  ill  in  a  bed  of 
some  celebrity.  It  was  a  bed  that  made  sickness 
auspicious.  King  Edward  had  used  it  when  he  had 
stayed  at  the  White  House  as  "  Baron  Renfrew," 
and  President  Lincoln  had  also  slept  on  it  during  his 
term  of  office,  which  perhaps  accounted  for  its  mas- 
sive and  rugged  utihty. 

The  visit  was  certainly  a  most  attractive  one  for 
the  President,  and  had  an  excellent  effect;  his  physi- 
cian reported  the  next  morning  that  Mr.  Wilson's 
spirits  had  risen  greatly,  and  that  as  a  result  of  the 
enjoyable  twenty  minutes  he  had  spent  with  the 
Prince.  On  Friday,  November  15th,  the  Prince 
went  to  the  United  States  Naval  College  at  An- 
napolis, a  place  set  amid  delightful  surroundings. 
He  inspected  the  whole  of  the  Academy,  and  was 
immensely  impressed  by  the  smartness  of  the  stu- 
dents, who,  themselves,  marked  the  occasion  by  treat- 
ing him  to  authentic  college  yells  on  his  departure. 

The  week-end  was  spent  quietly  at  the  beautiful 


Washington  317 


holiday  centre  of  Sulphur  Springs.     It  was  a  visit 
devoted  to  privacy  and  golf. 


IV 

During  our  stay  In  Washington  the  air  was  thick 
with  politics,  for  It  was  the  week  In  which  the  Sen- 
ate were  dealing  with  Clause  Ten  of  the  Peace 
Treaty.  The  whole  of  Washington,  and.  In  fact, 
the  whole  of  America,  was  tingling  with  politics,  and 
we  could  not  help  being  affected  by  the  current  emo- 
tion. 

I  am  not  going  to  attempt  to  discuss  American 
politics,  but  I  will  say  that  it  seemed  to  me  that 
politics  enter  more  personally  into  the  life  of  Ameri- 
cans than  with  the  British,  and  that  they  feel  them 
more  intensely.  At  the  same  time  I  had  a  definite 
impression  that  American  politics  have  a  different 
construction  to  ours.  The  Americans  speak  of 
"  The  Political  Game,"  and  I  had  the  feeling  that 
it  was  a  game  played  with  a  virtuosity  of  tactics  and 
with  a  metallic  Intensity,  and  the  principle  of  the 
game  was  to  beat  the  other  fellows.  So  much  so 
that  the  aim  and  end  of  politics  were  obscured,  and 
that  the  battle  was  fought  not  about  measures  but 
on  the  advantages  one  party  would  gain  over  an- 
other by  victory. 

That  Is,  the  "  Political  Game  "  is  a  game  of  the 
"  Ins  "  and  "  Outs  "  played  for  parliamentary  suc- 
cess with  the  habitual  keenness  and  zest  of  the 
American. 

This  Is  not  a  judgment  but  an  Impression.     I  do 


3i8    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

not  pretend  to  know  anything  of  America.  I  do  not 
think  any  one  can  know  America  well  unless  he  is 
an  American.  Those  who  think  that  America 
quickly  yields  its  secrets  to  the  British  mind  simply 
because  America  speaks  the  English  language  need 
the  instruction  of  a  visit  to  America. 

America  has  all  the  individuality  and  character 
of  a  separate  and  distinct  State.  To  think  that 
the  United  States  is  a  sort  of  Transatlantic  Britain 
is  simply  to  approach  the  United  States  with  a  set  of 
preconceived  notions  that  are  bound  to  suffer  con- 
siderable jarring.  Both  races  have  many  things  in 
common,  that  is  obvious  from  the  fact  of  a  common 
language,  and,  in  a  measure,  from  a  common  de- 
scent; but  they  have  things  that  are  not  held  in  com- 
mon. It  needs  a  closer  student  of  America  than 
I  am  to  go  into  this;  I  merely  give  my  own  impres- 
sion, and  perhaps  a  superficial  one  at  that.  It  may 
offer  a  point  of  elucidation  to  those  people  who  find 
themselves  shocked  because  English-speaking  Amer- 
ica sometimes  does  not  act  in  an  English  manner,  or 
respond  to  English  acts. 

America  is  America  first  and  all  the  time;  it  is  as 
complete  and  as  definite  in  its  spirits  as  the  oldest 
of  nations,  and  in  its  own  way.  Its  patriotism  is 
intense,  more  intense  than  British  patriotism  (though 
not  more  real),  because  by  nature  the  American  is 
more  intense.  The  vivid  love  of  Americans  for 
America  is  the  same  type  of  passion  that  the  French- 
man has  for  France. 

The  character  of  the  American,  as  I  encountered 
him  in  Washington,   Detroit,   and  New  York  —  a 


Washington  319 


very  limited  orbit  —  suggested  differences  from  the 
character  of  the  Englishman.  The  American,  as 
I  see  him,  is  more  simple,  more  puritan,  and  more 
direct  than  the  Briton.  His  generosity  is  a  most 
astonishing  thing.  He  is,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  a 
genuine  lover  of  his  brother-man,  not  theoretically 
but  actively,  for  he  is  anxious  to  get  into  contact,  to 
"  mix,"  to  make  the  most  of  even  a  chance  acquaint- 
ance. Simply  and  directly  he  exposes  the  whole  of 
himself,  says  what  he  means  and  withholds  nothing, 
so  that  acquaintance  should  be  made  on  an  equitable 
and  genuine  basis.  To  the  more  conservative  Briton 
this  is  alarming;  brought  up  in  a  land  of  reticences, 
the  Briton  wonders  what  the  American  is  "  getting 
at,"  what  does  he  want?  What  is  his  game? 
The  American  on  his  side  is  baffled  by  the  British 
habit  of  keeping  things  back,  and  he,  too,  perhaps 
wonders  why  this  fellow  is  going  slow  with  me? 
Doesn't  he  want  to  be  friends? 

Personally,  I  think  that  the  directness  and  sim- 
plicity of  the  Americans  is  the  directness  and  sim- 
plicity of  the  artist,  the  man  who  has  no  use  for 
unessentials.  And  one  gets  this  sense  of  artistry  in 
an  American's  business  dealings.  He  goes  directly 
at  his  object,  and  he  goes  with  a  concentrated  power 
and  a  zest  that  is  exhilarating.  Here,  too,  he  ex- 
poses his  hand  in  a  way  bewildering  to  the  Britisher, 
who  sometimes  finds  the  i\.merican  so  candid  in  his 
transactions  that  he  becomes  suspicious  of  there  be- 
ing something  more  behind  it. 

To  the  American  work  is  something  zestful,  joy- 
ous.    He  likes  to  get  things  done;  he  likes  to  do  big 


320    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

things  with  a  big  gesture  —  sometimes  to  the  dam- 
age of  detail,  which  he  has  overlooked  —  for  him 
work  is  craftsmanship,  a  thing  to  be  carried  through 
with  the  delight  of  a  craftsman.  He  is,  in  fact,  the 
artist  as  business  man. 

Like  all  artists  he  has  an  air  of  hardness,  the  ruth- 
lessness  to  attain  an  end.  But  like  all  artists  he  is 
quick  and  generous,  vivid  in  enthusiasm  and  hard  to 
daunt.  Like  the  artist  he  is  narrow  in  his  point  of 
view  at  times  and  decisive  in  opinion  —  simply  be- 
cause his  own  point  of  vision  is  all-absorbing. 

This,  for  example,  is  apparent  in  his  democracy, 
which  is  extraordinarily  wide  in  certain  respects,  and 
singularly  restricted  in  others  —  an  example  of  this 
is  the  way  the  Americans  handle  offenders  against 
their  code;  whether  they  be  LW.W.,  strikers  or  the 
like,  their  attitude  is  infinitely  more  ruthless  than 
the  British  attitude.  Another  example  is,  having 
so  splendid  a  freedom,  they  allow  themselves  to  be 
'*  bossed "  by  policemen,  porters  and  a  score  of 
others  who  exert  an  authority  so  drastic  on  occasions 
that  no  Briton  would  stand  it. 

But  over  all  I  was  struck  by  the  vividity  of  the 
Americans  I  met.  Business  men,  journalists, 
writers,  store  girls,  clerks,  clubmen,  railway  men  — 
all  of  them  had  an  air  of  passionate  aliveness,  an  in- 
tellectual avidity  that  made  contact  with  them  an 
affair  of  delightful  excitement. 


II 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

NEW   YORK 


THERE  was  no  qualification  or  reservation  in 
New  York's  welcome  to  the  Prince  of 
Wales. 

In  the  last  year  or  so  I  have  seen  some  great 
crowds,  and  by  that  I  mean  not  merely  vast  aggre- 
gations of  people,  but  vast  gatherings  of  people 
whose  ardour  carried  away  the  emotions  with  a  tre- 
mendous psychic  force.  During  that  year  I  had 
seen  the  London  crowd  that  welcomed  back  the  Brit- 
ish military  leader;  the  London  and  Manchester 
crowds,  and  vivid  and  stirring  crowds  they  were, 
that  dogged  the  footsteps  of  President  Wilson;  I  had 
seen  the  marvellous  and  poignant  crowd  at  the  Lon- 
don Victory  March,  and  I  had  had  a  course  of 
crowds,  vigorous,  affectionate  and  lively,  in  Mon- 
treal,  Toronto  and  throughout   Canada. 

I  had  been  toughened  to  crowds,  yet  the  New 
York  crowd  that  welcomed  the  Prince  was  a  fresh 
experience.  It  was  a  crowd  that,  in  spite  of  writing 
continuously  about  crowds  for  four  months,  gave 
me  a  direct  impulse  to  write  yet  again  about  a 
crowd,  that  gave  me  the  feeling  that  here  was  some- 
thing fresh,  sparkling,  human,  warm,  ardent  and 
provocative.     It    was    a    crowd    with    a    flutter    of 

321 


322    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

laughter  in  it,  a  crowd  that  had  a  personality,  an  in- 
souciance, an  independence  in  its  friendliness.  It 
was  a  crowd  that  I  shall  always  put  beside  other 
mental  pictures  of  big  crowds,  in  that  gallery  of 
clear  vignettes  of  things  impressive  that  make  the 
memory. 

There  was  a  big  crowd  about  the  Battery  long  be- 
fore the  Prince  was  due  to  arrive  across  the  river 
from  the  Jersey  City  side.  It  was  a  good-humoured 
crowd  that  helped  the  capable  New  York  policemen 
to  keep  itself  well  in  hand.  It  was  not  only  thick 
about  the  open  grass  space  of  the  Battery,  but  it 
was  clustering  on  the  skeleton  structure  of  the 
Elevated  Railway,  and  mounting  to  the  sky,  floor 
by  floor,  on  the  skyscrapers. 

High  up  on  the  twenty-second  floor  of  neighbour- 
ing buildings  we  could  see  a  crowd  of  dolls  and  win- 
dows, and  the  dolls  were  waving  shreds  of  cotton. 
The  dolls  were  women  and  the  cotton  shred  was 
*'  Old  Glory."  High  up  on  the  tremendous  cornice 
of  one  building  a  tiny  man  stood  with  all  the  calm 
gravity  of  a  statue.  He  was  unconcerned  by  the 
height,  he  was  only  concerned  in  obtaining  an  eagle's 
eye  view. 

About  the  landing-stage  itself,  the  landing-stage 
where  the  new  Americans  and  the  notabilities  land, 
there  was  a  wide  space,  kept  clear  by  the  police. 
Admirable  police  these,  who  can  handle  crowds  with 
any  police,  who  held  us  up  with  a  wall  of  adamant 
until  we  showed  our  letters  from  the  New  York 
Reception  Committee  (our  only,  and  certainly  not 
the  ofiicial,  passes),  and  then  not  only  let  us  through 


New  York  323 


without  fuss  but  helped  us  in  every  possible  way  to 
go  everywhere  and  see  everything. 

In  this  wide  space  were  gathered  the  cars  for  the 
procession,  and  the  notabilities  who  were  to  meet 
the  Prince,  and  the  camera  men  who  were  to  snap 
him.  Into  it  presently  marched  United  States 
Marines  and  Seamen.  A  hefty  lot  of  men,  who 
moved  casually,  and  with  a  slight  sense  of  slouch  as 
though  they  wished  to  convey  *'  We're  whales  for 
fighting,  but  no  damned  militarists." 

Since  the  Prince  was  not  entering  New  York  by 
steamer  —  the  most  thrilling  way  —  but  by  means 
of  a  railway  journey  from  Sulphur  Springs,  New 
York  had  taken  steps  to  correct  this  mode  of  entry. 
He  was  not  to  miss  the  first  impact  of  the  city.  He 
would  make  a  water  entry,  if  only  an  abbreviated 
one,  and  so  experience  one  of  the  Seven  (if  there 
are  not  more,  or  less)  Sensations  of  the  World, 
a  sight  of  the  profile  of  Manhattan  Island. 

The  profile  of  Manhattan  (blessed  name  that  O. 
Henry  has  rolled  so  often  on  the  palate)  is  lyric. 
It  is  a  sierra  of  skyscrapers.  It  is  a  flight  of  per- 
fect rockets,  the  fire  of  which  has  frozen  into  solidity 
in  mid-soaring.  It  is  a  range  of  tall,  narrow,  poig- 
nant buildings  that  makes  the  mind  think  of  giants, 
or  fairies,  or,  anyhow,  of  creatures  not  quite  of  this 
world.  It  is  one  of  the  few  things  the  imagination 
cannot  visualize  adequately,  and  so  gets  from  it  a 
satisfaction  and  not  a  disappointment. 

This  sight  the  Prince  saw  as  he  crossed  in  a  launch 
from  the  New  Jersey  side,  and  "  the  beauty  and 
dignity  of  the  towering  skyline,"  his  own  words,  so 


324    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

impressed  him  that  he  was  forced  to  speak  of  it  time 
and  time  again  during  his  visit  to  the  city.  And  on 
top  of  that  impression  came  the  second  and  even 
greater  one,  for,  and  again  I  use  his  own  words, 
"  men  and  women  appeal  to  me  even  more  than 
sights."  This  second  impression  was  "  the  most 
warm  and  friendly  welcome  that  followed  me  all 
through  the  drive  in  the  city." 

When  the  Prince  landed  he  seemed  to  me  a  little 
anxious;  he  was  at  the  threshold  of  a  great  and  im- 
portant city,  and  his  welcome  was  yet  a  matter  of 
speculation.  In  less  than  fifteen  minutes  he  was 
smiling  as  he  had  smiled  all  through  Canada,  and, 
as  in  Canada,  he  was  standing  in  his  car,  formality 
forgotten,  waving  back  to  the  crowd  with  a  friend- 
liness that  matched  the  friendliness  with  which  he 
was  received. 

He  faced  the  city  of  Splendid  Heights  with 
glances  of  wonder  at  the  line  of  cornices  that  crowned 
the  narrow  canyon  of  Broadway,  and  rose  up  cre- 
scendo in  a  vista  closed  by  the  campanile  of  the 
Woolworth  Building,  raised  like  a  pencil  against  the 
sky,  fifty-five  storeys  high.  On  the  beaches  beneath 
these  great  crags,  on  the  sidewalks,  and  pinned  be- 
tween the  sturdy  policemen  —  who  do  not  turn  backs 
to  the  crowd  but  face  it  alertly  —  and  the  sheer  walls 
was  a  lively  and  vast  throng.  And  rising  up  by 
storeys  was  a  lively  and  vast  throng,  hanging  out 
of  windows  and  clinging  to  ledges,  perilous  but 
happy  in  their  skyscraper-eye  view. 

And  from  these  high-up  windows  there  began  at 
once  a  characteristic  "  Down  Town  "  expression  of 


New  York  325 


friendliness.  Ticker-tape  began  to  shoot  downward 
in  long  uncoiling  snakes  to  catch  in  flagpoles  and 
window-ledges  in  strange  festoons.  Strips  of  paper 
began  to  descend  in  artificial  snow,  and  confetti,  and 
basket-loads  of  torn  letter  paper.  All  manner  of 
bits  of  paper  fluttered  and  swirled  in  the  air,  mak- 
ing a  grey  nebula  in  the  distance;  glittering  like 
spangles  of  gold  against  the  severe  white  cliffs  of  the 
skyscrapers  when  the  sun  caught  them. 

On  the  narrow  roadway  the  long  line  of  automo- 
biles was  littered  and  strung  with  paper,  and  the 
Prince  had  a  mantle  of  it,  and  was  still  cheery.  He 
could  not  help  himself.  The  reception  he  was  get- 
ting would  have  swept  away  a  man  of  stone,  and  he 
has  never  even  begun  to  be  a  man  of  stone.  The 
pace  was  slow,  because  of  the  marching  Marine 
escort,  and  people  and  Prince  had  full  opportunity 
for  sizing  up  each  other.  And  both  people  and 
Prince  were  satisfied. 

Escorted  by  the  motor-cyclist  police,  splendid  fel- 
lows who  chew  gum  and  do  their  duty  with  an  as- 
tonishing certainty  and  nimbleness,  the  Prince  came 
to  the  City  Hall  Square,  where  the  modern  Bronto- 
saurs  of  commerce  lift  mightily  above  the  low  and 
graceful  City  Hall,  which  has  the  look  of  a  petite 
mother  perpetually  astonished  at  the  size  of  the 
brood  she  has  reared. 

Inside  the  hall  the  Prince  became  a  New  Yorker, 
and  received  a  civic  welcome.  He  expressed  his 
real  pride  at  now  being  a  Freeman  of  the  two 
greatest  cities  in  the  VA'orld,  New  York  and  Lon- 
don, two  cities  that  were,  moreover,  so  much  akin, 


326    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

and  upon  which  depends  to  an  extraordinary  de- 
gree the  financial  health  and  the  material  as  well  as 
spiritual  welfare  of  all  continents.  As  for  his  wel- 
come, he  had  learnt  to  appreciate  the  quality  of 
American  friendship  from  contact  with  members  of 
the  splendid  fighting  forces  that  had  come  overseas, 
but  even  that,  he  indicated,  had  not  prepared  him 
for  the  wonder  of  the  greeting  he  had  received. 

Outside  the  City  Hall  the  vast  throng  had  waited 
patiently,  and  they  seemed  to  let  their  suppressed 
energy  go  as  the  Prince  came  out  of  the  City  Hall 
to  face  the  massed  batteries  of  photographers,  who 
would  only  allow  snapshots  to  be  his  "  pass  "  to  his 
automobile. 

The  throngs  in  financial  "  Down  Town  "  gave  way 
to  the  massed  ranks  of  workers  from  the  big  whole- 
sale and  retail  houses  that  occupy  middle  New  York 
as  the  Prince  passed  up  Broadway,  the  street  that  Is 
not  as  broad  as  other  streets,  and  the  only  one  that 
wanders  at  its  own  fancy  In  a  kingdom  of  parallels 
and  right-angles.  At  the  corner  where  stands 
Wanamaker's  great  store  the  crowd  was  thickest. 
Here  was  stationed  a  band  in  a  quaint  old-time  uni- 
form of  red  tunics,  bell  trousers  and  shakos,  while 
facing  them  across  the  street  was  a  squad  of  girls 
in  pretty  blue  and  white  military  uniforms  and 
hats. 

Soon  the  line  of  cars  swung  Into  speed  and  gained 
Fifth  Avenue,  passing  the  Flatiron  building,  which  is 
now  not  a  wonder.  Such  soaring  structures  as  the 
Metropolitan  Tower,  close  by  in  Madison  Square, 
have  taken  the  shine  out  of  It,  and  in  the  general 


New  York  327 


atmosphere  of  giants  one  does  not  notice  its  freakish- 
ness  unless  one  is  looking  for  it. 

Fifth  Avenue  is  superb;  it  is  the  route  of  pageants 
by  right  of  air  and  quality.  It  is  Oxford  Street, 
London,  made  broad  and  straight  and  clean.  It  has 
fine  buildings  along  its  magnificent  reach,  and  some 
noble  ones.  It  has  dignity  and  vivacity,  it  has  space 
and  it  has  an  air.  In  the  graceful  open  space  about 
Madison  Square  there  stood  the  massive  Arch  of 
Victory,  under  which  America's  soldiers  had  swung 
when  they  returned  from  the  front.  It  was  a  tem- 
porary arch  constructed  with  realism  and  ingenuity; 
the  Prince  passed  under  it  on  his  way  up  the  avenue. 

He  went  at  racing  pace  up  to  and  into  Central 
Park,  that  convincing  affectation  of  untrammelled 
Nature  (convincing  because  it  is  untrammelled), 
that  beautiful  residences  of  town  dwellers  look  into. 
He  swung  to  the  left  by  the  gracious  pile  of  the 
Cathedral  of  St.  John  the  Divine,  and  out  on  to 
Riverside  Park,  that  hangs  its  gardens  over  the 
deep  waters  of  the  Hudson  River.  Standing 
isolated  and  with  a  fine  serenity  above  green  and 
water  is  General  Grant's  tomb,  and  at  the  wideflung 
white  plaza  of  this  the  Prince  dismounted,  going  on 
foot  to  the  tomb,  and  in  the  tomb,  going  alone  to 
deposit  a  wreath  on  the  great  soldier's  grave. 

Riverside  Park  had  its  flowering  of  bright  people, 
and  its  multitude  of  motors  to  swarm  after  the 
Prince  as  he  passed  along  the  Drive,  paused  to  re- 
view a  company  of  English-Americans  who  had 
served  in  the  war,  and  then  continued  on  his  way  to 
the  Yacht  Club  jetty,  where  he  was  to  take  boat  to 


328    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

the  Renown.  Lying  in  deep  water  high  up  in  the 
town  was  this  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  modern  war- 
ships, her  greatness  considerably  diminished  by  the 
buildings  lifting  above  her.  To  her  the  Prince  went 
after  nearly  three  months'  absence,  and  on  her  he 
lived  during  his  stay  in  New  York. 


II 

When  I  say  that  the  Prince  lived  on  board  the  Re- 
nown, I  mean  that  he  lived  on  her  in  his  moments  to 
spare.  In  New  York  the  visitor  is  lucky  who  has 
a  few  moments  to  spare.  New  York's  hospitality 
is  electric.  It  rushes  the  guest  off  his  feet.  Even 
if  New  York  is  not  definitely  engaged  to  entertain 
you  at  specific  minutes,  it  comes  round  to  know 
if  you  have  everything  you  want,  whether  it  can  do 
anything  for  you. 

New  York  was  calling  on  the  Prince  almost  as 
soon  as  he  went  aboard.  There  was  a  lightning 
lunch  to  Mr.  Wanamaker,  the  President  of  the  Re- 
ception Committee,  and  other  members  of  that  body, 
and  then  the  first  of  the  callers  began  to  chug  off 
from  the  landing-stage  towards  the  Renown.  Dep- 
utations from  all  the  foreign  races  that  make  New 
York  came  over  the  side,  distinguished  Americans 
called.  And,  before  anybody  else,  the  American 
journalist  was  there. 

The  Prince  was  no  stranger  to  the  American 
journalist.  They  were  old  friends  of  his.  Some  of 
them  had  been  with  him  in  the  Maritime  Provinces 
of  Canada,  and  he  had  made  friends  with  them  at 


New  York  329 


Quebec.  He  remembered  these  writers  and  that 
friendship  was  renewed  in  a  pleasant  chat.  The 
journalists  liked  him,  too,  though  they  admit  that 
he  has  a  charming  way  of  disarming  them.  They 
rather  admired  the  adroit  diplomacy  with  which  he 
derailed  such  leading  questions  as  those  dealing  with 
the  delicate  and  infinite  subject  of  American  girls: 
whether  he  liked  them:  and  how  much? 

He  met  these  correspondents  quite  frankly,  ap- 
preciating at  once  the  fact  that  it  was  through  them 
that  he  could  express  to  the  people  of  America  his 
intense  feeling  of  thanks  for  the  singular  warmth 
of  America's  greeting. 

From  seeing  all  these  visitors  the  Prince  had  only 
time  left  to  get  into  evening  dress  and  to  be  whirled 
off  in  time  to  attend  a  glittering  dinner  given  at  the 
Waldorf-Astoria  by  Mrs.  Henry  Pomeroy  David- 
son on  behalf  of  the  Council  of  the  American  Red 
Cross.  It  was  a  vivid  and  beautiful  function,  but  it 
was  one  that  bridged  the  time  before  another,  and 
before  ten  o'clock  the  Prince  was  on  the  move  again, 
and,  amid  the  dance  of  the  motor-bike  "  cops,"  was 
being  rushed  off  to  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House. 

He  was  swung  down  Broadway  where  the  adver- 
tisements made  a  fantasy  of  the  sky,  a  fantasy  of 
rococo  beauty  where  colours  on  the  huge  pallets  of 
skyscrapers  danced  and  ran,  fused  and  faded, 
grouped  and  regrouped,  each  a  huge  and  coherent 
kaleidoscope. 

Here  a  gigantic  kitten  of  lights  turned  a  complete 
somersault  in  the  heavens  as  it  played  with  a  ball  of 
wool.     There    six    sky-high    manikins    with    match- 


330    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

stick  limbs,  went  through  an  incandescent  perpetual 
and  silent  dance.  In  the  distance  was  a  gigantic 
bull  advertising  tobacco  —  all  down  this  heavenly 
vista  there  were  these  immense  signs,  lapping  and 
over-lapping  in  dazzling  chaos.  And  seen  from  one 
angle,  high  up,  unsupported,  floating  in  the  very  air 
and  eerily  unsubstantial,  was  a  temple  lit  by  bale- 
fires that  shone  wanly  at  its  base.  It  was  merely 
a  building  superimposed  upon  a  skyscraper,  but  in 
the  dark  there  was  no  skyscraper,  and  the  amazing 
structure  hung  there  lambent,  silent,  enigmatic,  a 
Wagnerian  temple  in  tjie  sky. 

Broadway,  which  sprouts  theatres  as  a  natural 
garden  sprouts  flowers,  was  jewelled  with  lights, 
lights  that  in  the  clear  air  of  this  continent  shone 
with  a  lucidity  that  we  in  England  do  not  know.  Be- 
fore the  least  lighted  of  these  buildings  the  Prince 
stopped.  He  had  arrived  at  the  austere  temple  of 
the  high  arts,  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House. 

Inside  Caruso  and  a  brilliant  audience  waited  im- 
patiently for  his  presence.  The  big  and  rather 
sombre  house  was  quick  with  colour  and  with  beauty. 
The  celebrated  "  Diamond  Horseshoe,"  the  tiers  of 
the  galleries,  and  the  floor  of  the  house  were  vivid 
with  dresses,  shimmering  and  glinting  with  all  the 
evasive  shades  of  the  spectrum,  with  here  a  flash  of 
splendid  jewels,  there  the  slow  and  sumptuous  flut- 
ter of  a  great  ostrich  fan. 

Part  of  the  program  had  been  played,  but  Pag- 
liacci  and  Caruso  were  held  up  while  the  vivid  and 
ardent  people  craned  out  of  their  little  crimson  boxes 
in  the  Horseshoes  and  turned  and  looked  up  from  the 


New  York  331 


bright  mosaic  of  the  floor  at  the  empty  box  which 
was  to  be  the  Prince's. 

There  was  a  long  roll  of  drums,  and  with  a  single 
movement  the  orchestra  marched  into  the  melody 
of  "  God  bless  the  Prince  of  Wales,"  and  the  Prince, 
looking  extraordinarily  embarrassed,  came  to  the 
front  of  the  box. 

At  once  there  was  no  melody  of  "  God  bless  the 
Prince  of  Wales"  perceptible;  a  wave  of  cheering 
and  hand-clapping  swept  it  away.  The  whole  of  the 
people  on  the  floor  of  the  house  turned  to  look  up- 
ward and  to  cheer.  The  people  under  the  tiers 
crowded  forward  into  the  gangways  until  the  gang- 
ways were  choked,  and  the  floor  was  a  solid  mass 
of  humanity.  Bright  women  and  men  correctly 
garbed  imperilled  their  necks  in  the  galleries  above 
in  order  to  look  down.  It  was  an  unforgettable 
moment,  and  for  the  Prince  a  disconcerting  one. 

He  stood  blushing  and  looking  down,  wondering 
how  on  earth  he  was  to  endure  this  stark  publicity. 
He  was  there  poised  bleakly  for  all  to  see,  an  un- 
enviable position.  And  there  was  no  escape.  He 
must  stand  there,  because  it  was  his  job,  and  recover 
from  the  nervousness  that  had  come  from  finding 
himself  so  abruptly  thrust  on  to  this  veritable  pillar 
of  Stylites  in  the  midst  of  an  interested  and  curious 
throng. 

The  interest  and  the  curiosity  was  intensely 
friendly.  His  personality  suffered  not  at  all  from 
the  fact  that  he  had  lost  his  calm  at  a  moment  when 
only  the  case-hardened  could  have  remained  un- 
moved.    His  embarrassment,  indeed,  made  the  audi- 


332    Westward  with  the  Fr'mce  of  Wales 

ence  more  friendly,  and  it  was  with  a  sort  of  inti- 
macy that  they  tittered  at  his  famiHar  tricks  of 
nervousness,  his  fumbling  at  his  tie,  tugging  of  his 
coat  lapels,  the  passing  of  the  hand  over  his  hair, 
even  the  anxious  use  of  his  handkerchief. 

And  this  friendly  and  soft  laughter  became  really 
appreciative  when  they  saw  him  tackle  the  chairs. 
There  were  two  imposing  and  pompous  gilt  chairs 
at  the  front  of  the  box,  filling  it,  elbowing  all  minor, 
human  chairs  out  of  the  way.  The  Prince  turned 
and  looked  at  them,  and  turned  them  out.  He 
would  have  none  of  them.  He  was  not  there  to  be 
a  superior  person  at  all;  he  was  there  to  be  human 
and  enjoy  human  companionship.  He  had  the  front 
of  the  box  filled  with  chairs,  and  he  had  friends  in 
to  sit  with  him  and  talk  with  him  when  intervals  in 
the  music  permitted.  And  the  audience  was  his 
friend  for  that;  they  admired  him  for  the  way  he 
turned  his  back  on  formalities  and  ceremonials. 
General  Pershing,  who  gratifies  one's  romantic  sense 
by  being  extraordinarily  like  one's  imaginative  pic- 
tures of  a  great  General,  came  to  sit  with  him,  and 
there  was  another  outburst  of  cheering.  I  think 
that  the  petits  morceaux  from  the  operas  were  but 
side-shows.  Although  Rosina  Galli  ravished  the 
house  with  her  dancing  (how  she  must  love  dancing), 
opera  glasses  were  swivelled  more  toward  the  Royal 
box  than  to  the  stage,  and  the  audience  made  a  close 
and  curious  study  of  every  movement  and  every  in- 
flection of  the  Prince. 

The  cheering  broke  out  again,  from  people  who 
crowded  afresh  into  the  gangways,  when  the  Prince 


New  York  333 


left,  and  in  a  mighty  wave  of  friendliness  the  official 
program  of  the  first  day  closed. 


Ill 

There  was  an  unofficial  ending  to  the  day.  The 
Prince,  with  several  of  his  suite,  walked  in  New 
York,  viewed  this  exhilarating  city  of  lights  and 
vistas  by  night,  got  his  own  private  and  unformal 
view  of  the  wonders  of  skyscraping  townscape,  the 
quick,  nervous  shuttle  of  the  sidewalks,  the  rattle  of 
the  "  Elevated,"  the  sight,  for  the  first  time  in  a  long 
journey,  of  motor-buses.  And  without  doubt  he 
tasted  the  wonder  of  a  city  of  automobiles  still  cling- 
ing to  the  hansom  cab. 

About  this  outing  there  have  been  woven  stories 
of  a  glamour  which  might  have  come  from  the 
fancy  of  O.  Henry  and  the  author  of  the  "  Arabian 
Nights  "  working  in  collaboration.  The  Prince  is 
said  to  have  plunged  into  the  bizarre  landscape  of  the 
Bowery,  which  is  Whitechapel  better  lighted,  and 
better  dressed  with  up-to-date  cafes,  where  there  are 
dance  halls  in  which  with  the  fathomless  seriousness 
of  the  modern,  jazz  is  danced  to  violins  and  banjoes 
and  the  wailing  ukelele. 

They  tell  me  that  Ichabod  has  been  written  across 
the  romantic  glory  of  the  Bowery,  and  that  for  colour 
and  the  spice  of  life  one  has  to  go  further  west 
(which  is  Manhattan's  East  End)  to  Greenwich  Vil- 
lage, where  life  strikes  Chelsea  attitudes,  and  where 
one  descends  subterraneanly,  or  climbs  over  the  roofs 
of  houses  to  Matisse-like  restaurants  where  one  eats 


334    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

rococo  meals  in  an  atmosphere  of  cigarette  smoke, 
rice-white  faces,  scarlet  lips,  and  bobbed  hair.  But 
there  are  yet  places  in  the  Bowery  to  which  one  taxis 
with  a  thrill  of  hope,  where  the  forbidden  cock- 
tail is  served  in  a  coffee  cup,  where  wine  bottles  are 
put  on  to  the  table  with  brown  paper  wrapped  round 
them  to  preserve  the  fiction  that  they  came  from 
one's  own  private  (and  legal)  store,  where  in  bare, 
studiously  Bowery  chambers  the  hunter  of  a  new 
frisson  sits  and  dines  and  hopes  for  the  worst. 

The  Bowery  is  dingy  and  bright;  it  has  hawkers' 
barrows  and  chaotic  shop  windows.  It  has  the  curi- 
osity-stimulating, cosmopolite  air  of  all  dockside 
areas,  but  to  the  Englishman  accustomed  to  the  pic- 
turesque bedragglement  of  East  End  costumes,  it  is 
almost  dismayingly  well-dressed.  Its  young  men 
have  the  leanness  of  outline  that  comes  from  an 
authentic  American  tailor.  Its  Jewesses  have  the 
neat  crispness  of  American  fashion  that  gives  their 
vivid  beauty  a  new  and  sparkling  note.  It  was 
astonishing  the  number  of  beautiful  young  women 
one  saw  on  the  Bowery,  but  not  astonishing  when  one 
recalls  the  number  of  beautiful  young  women  one 
saw  in  New  York.  Fifth  Avenue  at  shopping  time, 
for  example,  ceases  to  be  a  street:  it  becomes  a 
pageant  of  youth  and  grace. 

The  Prince,  of  course,  may  have  gone  into  the 
Bowery,  and  walked  therein  with  the  air  of  a  modern 
Caliph,  but  I  myself  have  not  heard  of  it.  I  was 
told  that  he  went  for  a  walk  to  the  house  of  a  friend, 
and  that  after  paying  a  very  pleasant  and  ordinary 
visit  he  returned  to  the  Renown  to  get  what  sleep  he 


New  York  335 


could  before  the  adventure  of  another  New  York 
day. 

IV 

The  morning  of  Wednesday,  November  19th,  was 
devoted  by  the  Prince  to  high  finance;  he  went  down 
to  Wall  Street  and  to  visit  the  other  temples  of  the 
gold  god. 

When  one  has  become  acclimated  to  the  soaring 
upward  rush  of  the  skyscrapers  (and  one  quite  soon 
loses  consciousness  of  them,  for  where  all  buildings 
are  huge  each  building  becomes  commonplace), 
when  one  stops  looking  upward,  "  Down  Town  " 
New  York  is  strangely  like  the  "  City  "  area  of  Lon- 
don. Walking  Broadway  one  might  easily  imagine 
oneself  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Bank  of  Eng- 
land; Wall  Street  might  easily  be  a  turning  out  of 
Bishopsgate  or  Cannon  Street.  Broad  Street,  New 
York,  is  not  so  very  far  removed  in  appearance  from 
Broad  Street,  London. 

There  is  the  same  preoccupied  congestion  of  the 
same  work-mazed  people:  clerks,  typists  (stenog- 
raphers), book-keepers,  messengers  and  masters, 
though,  perhaps,  the  people  of  the  New  York  busi- 
ness quarter  do  not  wear  the  air  of  sadness  those 
of  London  wear. 

And  there  is  the  same  massive  solidity  of  business 
buildings,  great  blocks  that  house  thirty  thousand 
souls  in  the  working  day,  and  these  buildings  have 
the  same  air  as  their  London  brothers;  that  is,  they 
seem  to  be  monuments  to  financial  integrity  (just  as 
mahogany  furniture,  with  a  certain  type,  is  an  indi- 


33^    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

cation  of  "standing  and  weight")  rather  than  of- 
fices. And  if  New  York  buildings  are,  on  the  whole, 
more  distinguished,  are  characterized  by  a  better  art, 
they  are,  on  the  other  hand,  not  relieved  by  the 
humanity  of  the  shops  that  gives  an  air  of  bright- 
ness to  the  London  commercial  area.  In  New  York 
*'  Down  Town  "  the  shops  are  mainly  inside  the 
buildings,  and  it  is  in  the  corridors  of  the  big  blocks 
that  the  clerk  buys  his  magazines,  papers,  "  candies," 
sandwiches  and  cigars. 

The  interiors  of  the  buildings  are  ornate,  they  are 
sleek  with  marble,  and  quite  often  beautiful  with  it. 
They  are  well  arranged;  the  skyscraper  habit  makes 
for  short  corridors,  and  you  can  always  find  your 
man  easily  (as  in  the  hotels)  by  the  number  of  his 
room:  thus,  if  his  number  is  1201  he  is  on  the 
twelfth  floor,  802  is  on  the  eighth,  and  2203  is  on 
the  twenty-second;  each  floor  is  a  ten. 

Up  to  the  floors  one  ascends  by  means  of  one  of  a 
fleet  of  elevators,  some  being  locals  and  some  being 
expresses  to  a  certain  floor  and  local  beyond. 
Whether  the  fleet  is  made  up  of  two  or  ten  hfts, 
there  is  always  a  man  to  control  them,  a  station- 
master  of  lifts  who  gives  the  word  to  the  liftboys. 
To  the  Englishman  he  is  a  new  phenomenon.  He 
seems  a  trifle  unnecessary  [but  he  may  be  put  there 
by  law]  ;  he  is  soon  seen  to  be  one  of  a  multitude  of 
men  in  America  who  "  stand  over  "  other  men  while 
they  do  the  job. 

The  unexpected  thing  in  buildings  so  fine  as  this, 
occupied  by  men  who  are  addicted  to  business,  is  that 
the  oflices  have  rather  a  makeshift  air.     The  offices 


New  York  337 


I  saw  In  America  do  not  compare  in  comfort  with  the 
offices  I  know  in  England.  There  is  a  bleakness,  an 
aridity  about  them  that  makes  English  business 
rooms  seem  luxurious  in  comparison.  I  talked  of 
this  phenomenon  with  a  friend,  instancing  one  great 
office,  to  be  met  with  surprise  and  told:  "Why! 
But  that  office  is  held  up  as  an  example  of  what  offices 
should  be  like.  We  are  agitating  to  get  ours  as  good 
as  that."     After  this  I  did  not  talk  about  offices. 

The  "  Down  Town "  restaurants  bring  one 
vividly  back  to  London.  They  are  underground, 
and  there  is  the  same  thick  volume  of  masculinity 
and  masculine  talk  in  them.  They  are  a  trifle  more 
ornate,  and  the  food  is  better  cooked  and  of  in- 
finitely greater  variety  (they  would  not  be  American 
otherwise),  but  over  all  the  air  is  the  same. 

Into  the  familiar  business  atmosphere  of  this 
quarter  the  Prince  came  early.  He  drove  between 
crowds  and  there  were  big  crowds  at  the  points 
where  he  stopped  —  at  the  Woolworth  building  and 
at  Trinity  Church,  that  stands  huddled  and  dwarfed 
beneath  the  basilicas  of  business.  The  intense  in- 
terest of  his  visit  began  when  he  arrived  at  the 
Stock  Exchange. 

The  business  on  the  floor  was  In  full  swing  when 
he  came  out  on  to  the  marble  gallery  of  the  vast, 
square  marble  hall  of  the  Exchange,  and  the  busy 
swarm  of  money-gathering  men  beneath  his  eyes 
immediately  stopped  to  cheer  him.  To  look  down, 
as  he  did,  was  to  look  down  upon  the  floor  of  some 
great  bazaar.  The  floor  is  set  with  ranks  of  kiosks 
spaced  apart,  about  which  men  congregate  only  to 


33^    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

dlv^ide  and  go  all  ways;  these  kiosks  might  easily  be 
booths.  The  floor  itself  is  in  constant  movement; 
it  is  a  disturbed  ant-heap  with  its  denizens  speeding 
about  always  in  unconjectural  movements.  Groups 
gather,  thrust  hands  and  fingers  upward,  shout  and 
counter-shout,  as  though  bent  on  working  up  a 
fracas;  then  when  they  seem  to  have  succeeded  they 
make  notes  in  small  books  and  walk  quietly  away. 
Messengers,  who  must  work  by  instinct,  weave  In 
and  out  of  the  stirring  of  ants  perpetually.  In  a 
line  of  cubicles  along  one  side  of  the  Exchange, 
crowds  of  men  seemed  to  be  fighting  each  other  for 
a  chance  at  the  telephone. 

Two  of  the  tremendous  walls  of  this  hall  are  on 
the  street,  and  superb  windows  allow  in  the  light. 
On  the  two  remaining  walls  are  gigantic  black- 
boards. Incessantly,  small  flaps  are  falling  on  these 
blackboards  revealing  numbers.  They  are  the  num- 
bers of  members  who  have  been  "  called  "  over  the 
'phone  or  in  some  other  way.  The  blackboards  are 
in  a  constant  flutter,  the  tiny  flaps  are  always  falling 
or  shutting,  as  numbers  appear  and  disappear,  and 
the  boards  are  starred  with  numbers  waiting 
patiently  for  the  eye  of  the  member  on  the  floor  to 
look  up  and  be  aware  of  them. 

The  Prince  stood  on  the  high  gallery  under  the 
high  windows,  and  watched  with  vivid  curiosity  the 
bustling  scene  below.  He  asked  a  number  of  eager 
questions,  and  the  strange  silent  dance  of  numbers 
on  the  big  blackboards  intrigued  him  greatly.  Un- 
derneath him  the  members  gathered  in  a  great 
crowd,  calling  up  to  him  to  come  down  on  the  floor. 


New  York  339 


There  was  a  jolly  eagerness  in  their  demands,  and 
the  Prince,  as  he  went,  seemed  to  hesitate  as  though 
he  were  quite  game  for  the  adventure.  But  he  dis- 
appeared, and  though  the  Bears  and  the  Bulls 
waited  a  little  while  for  him,  he  did  not  reappear. 
Those  who  knew  that  a  full  twelve-hour  program 
could  only  be  accomplished  by  following  the  time- 
table with  rigid  devotion  had  had  their  way. 

From  the  Stock  Ecxchange  the  Prince  went  to  the 
Sub-Treasury,  and  watched,  fascinated,  the  miracle 
work  of  the  money  counters.  The  intricacies  of 
currency  were  explained  to  him,  and  he  was  shown 
the  men  who  went  through  mounds  of  coin,  with 
lightning  gestures  separating  the  good  from  the  bad 
with  their  instinctive  finger-tips  and  with  the  ac- 
curacy of  one  of  Mr.  Ford's  uncanny  machines.  He 
was  told  that  the  touch  of  these  men  was  so  ex- 
quisite that  they  could  detect  a  "  dud  "  coin  instantly, 
and,  to  test  them,  such  a  coin  was  produced  and 
marked,  and  well  hidden  in  a  pile  of  similar  coins. 
The  fingers  of  the  teller  went  through  the  pile  like 
a  flash,  and  as  he  flicked  the  good  coins  towards 
him,  and  without  ceasing  his  work,  a  coin  span  out 
from  the  mass  towards  the  Prince.  It  was  the  coin 
he  had  marked. 

V 

Passing  among  these  business  people  and  driving 
amid  the  quick  crowds,  the  Prince  had  been  con- 
solidating the  sense  of  intimate  friendship  that  had 
sprung  up  on  the  previous  day.  A  wise  American 
pressman  had  said  to  me  on  Tuesday: 


340    Westward  with  the  Prmce  of  Wales 

"  New  York  people  like  what  they've  read  about 
the  Prince.  They'll  come  out  today  to  see  if  what 
they  have  read  is  true.  Tomorrow  they'll  come  out 
because  they  love  him.  And  each  day  the  crowds 
will  get  better." 

This  proved  true.  The  warmth  of  New  York's 
friendliness  increased  as  the  days  went  on.  The 
scene  at  the  lunch  given  by  the  New  York  Chamber 
of  Commerce  proved  how  strong  this  regard  had 
grown.  The  scene  was  remarkable  because  of  the 
character  and  the  quality  of  the  men  present.  It 
was  no  admiration  society.  It  was  no  gathering  of 
sentimentalists.  The  men  who  attended  that  lunch 
were  men  not  only  of  international  reputation,  but 
of  international  force,  men  of  cautious  fibre  ac- 
customed to  big  encounters,  not  easily  moved  to 
emotion.  And  they  fell  under  the  charm  of  the 
Prince.  I 

One  of  them  expressed  his  feelings  concerning  the 
scene  to  me. 

"  He  had  it  over  us  all  the  time,"  he  said,  laugh-       | 
ing.     "  There  we  were,  several  hundreds  of  grey- 
headed, hardened  old  stiffs,  most  of  us  over  twice 
his  age,   and  we   stood  up  and  yelled  like   college 
freshmen  when  he  had  finished  speaking  to  us. 

"What  did  he  say  to  us?  Nothing  very  re- 
markable. He  told  us  how  useful  we  old  ones  in 
the  money  market  had  been  as  a  backbone  to  the 
boys  in  the  firing  line.  He  told  us  that  he  felt  that 
the  war  had  revealed  clearly  the  closeness  of  the 
relationship  between  the  two  Anglo-Saxon  nations, 
how   their  welfare   was   interlocked   and  how   the 


New  York  341 


prosperity  of  each  was  essential  to  the  prosperity  of 
the  other,  and  he  agreed  with  the  President  of  the 
Chamber's  statement  that  British  and  American  good 
faith  and  good  will  would  go  far  to  preserve  the 
stability  of  the  world.  There's  nothing  very  won- 
derful to  that.  It's  true  enough,  but  not  altogether 
unknown.  ...  It  was  his  manner  that  caught  hold 
of  us.  The  way  he  speaks,  you  see.  His  nervous- 
ness, and  his  grit  in  conquering  his  nervousness. 
His  modesty;  his  twinkle  of  humour,  all  of  him. 
He's  one  fine  lad.  I  tell  you  we've  had  some  big 
men  in  the  Chamber  in  the  last  two  years,  but  it's 
gilt-edged  truth  that  none  of  the  big  ones  had  the 
showing  that  lad  got  today." 

From  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  the  Prince  went 
to  the  Academy  of  Music  where  there  was  a  picture 
and  variety  show  staged  for  him,  and  which  he  en- 
joyed enormously.  The  thrill  of  this  item  of  the 
program  was  rather  in  the  crowd  than  in  the  show. 
It  was  an  immense  crowd,  and  for  once  it  vanquished 
the  efficient  police  and  swarmed  about  His  Royal 
Highness  as  he  entered  the  building.  While  he  was 
inside  it  added  to  its  strength  rather  than  diminished, 
and  in  the  face  of  this  crisis  one  of  those  men  whose 
brains  rise  to  emergencies  had  the  bright  idea  of 
getting  the  Prince  out  by  the  side  door.  The  crowd 
had  also  had  that  bright  idea  and  the  throng  about 
the  side  door  was,  if  anything,  more  dense  than  at 
the  front.  Through  this  laughing  and  cheering 
mass  squads  of  good-humoured  police  butted  a 
thread  of  passage  for  the  happy  Prince. 

The  throng  inside  Madison  Square  Garden  about 


342    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

the  arena  of  the  Horse  Show  was  more  decorous,  as 
became  its  status,  but  It  did  not  let  that  stifle  its  feel- 
ings. The  Prince  passed  through  from  a  cheering 
crowd  outside  to  the  bright,  sharp  clapping  of  those 
Inside.  He  passed  round  the  arena  between  ranks 
of  Salvation  Army  lassies,  who  held,  instead  of  bar- 
rier ropes,  broad  scarlet  ribbons. 

There  was  a  laugh  as  he  touched  his  hair  upon 
gaining  the  stark  publicity  of  his  box,  and  the  laugh 
changed  to  something  of  a  cheer  when  he  caught 
sight  of  the  chairs  of  pomp,  two  of  them  in  frigid 
isolation,  elbowing  out  smaller  human  fry.  All  knew 
from  his  very  attitude  what  was  going  to  happen 
to  those  chairs.  And  It  happened.  The  chairs 
vanished.  Small  chairs  and  more  of  them  took 
their  place,  and  the  Prince  sat  with  genial  people 
about  him. 

The  arena  was  a  field  of  brightness.  It  was  de- 
lightfully decorated  with  green  upon  lattice  work. 
Over  the  competitors'  entrance  were  canvas  replicas 
of  Tudor  houses.  In  the  ring  the  Prince  saw  many 
beautiful  horses,  fine  hunters,  natty  little  ponies  pull- 
ing nattier  carriages,  trotters  of  mechanical  perfec- 
tion, and  big  lithe  jumpers.  In  the  middle  of  the 
jumping  competition  he  left  his  box  and  went  into 
the  ring,  and  spent  some  time  there  chatting  with 
judges  and  competitors,  and  watching  the  horses 
take  the  hurdles  and  gates  from  close  quarters. 

Leaving  the  building  there  happened  one  of  those 
vivid  little  incidents  which  speak  more  eloquently 
than  any  effort  of  oratory  could  of  the  kinship  of  the 
two  races  in  their  war  effort.     A  group  of  men  in 


New  York  343 


uniform  who  had  been  waiting  by  the  exit  sprang 
to  attention  as  he  came  up.  They  were  all  Ameri- 
cans. They  were  all  in  British  uniform  —  most 
of  them  in  British  Flying  Corps  uniform.  As  the 
Prince  came  up,  they  clicked  round  in  a  smart  "  Left 
turn,"  and  marched  before  him  out  of  the  building. 

The  Prince  from  thence  on  vanished  for  the  day 
into  a  round  of  semi-social  functions,  but  he  did  not 
escape  the  crowds. 

Walking  up  Fifth  Avenue  with  friends  shortly 
before  dinner-time,  we  came  upon  a  bunched  jumble 
of  people  outside  the  "  Waldorf-Astoria."  It  was 
a  crowd  that  a  man  in  a  hurry  could  not  argue  with. 
It  filled  the  broad  street,  and  it  did  not  care  if  it 
impeded  traffic.  We  were  not  in  a  hurry,  so  we 
stood  and  looked.  I  asked  my  friends  what  was 
happening  here,  and  one  of  them  chuckled  and  an- 
swered: 

*'  They've  got  him  again." 

"Him?  Who  —  you  can't  mean  the  Prince? 
He's  on  Renown  now,  resting,  or  getting  ready  for 
a  dinner.     There's  nothing  down  for  him." 

My  friend  simply  chuckled  again. 

"  Who  else  would  it  be?  "  he  said.  "  How  they 
do  gather  round  waiting  for  that  smile  of  his.  Flies 
round  a  honey-pot.     Ah,  I  thought  so." 

The  Prince  made  a  dash  of  an  exit  from  the 
hotel.  He  jumped  into  the  car,  and  at  once  there 
was  a  forest  of  hands  and  handkerchiefs  and  flags 
waving,  and  his  own  hand  and  hat  seemed  to  go  up 
and  wave  as  part  of  one  and  the  same  movement. 
It    was    a    spontaneous    "  Hallo,    People !     Hallo, 


344    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

Prince!"  A  jolly  affair.  The  motor  started, 
pushed  through  the  crowd.  There  was  a  sharp  pic- 
ture of  the  Prince  half  standing,  half  kneeling,  look- 
ing back  and  laughing  and  waving  to  the  crowd. 
Then  he  was  gone. 

The  men  and  women  of  the  throng  turned  away 
smiling,  as  though  something  good  had  happened. 

"  They've  seen  him.  They  can  go  home  now," 
said  my  friend.  "  My,  ain't  they  glad  about  them- 
selves. .  .  .     And  isn't  he  the  one  fine  scout?  " 


VI 

When  the  Prince  made  his  appearance  on  Thurs- 
day, November  20th,  in  the  uniform  of  a  Welsh 
Guardsman  he  came  in  for  a  startling  ovation.  Not 
only  were  many  people  gathered  about  the  Yacht 
Qub  landing-stage  and  along  the  route  of  his  drive, 
but  at  one  point  a  number  of  ladies  pelted  him  with 
flowers.  Startled  though  the  Prince  was,  he  kept 
his  smile  and  his  sense  of  humour.  He  said  dryly 
that  he  had  never  known  what  it  was  to  feel  hke  a 
bride  before,  and  he  returned  this  volley  with  his 
friendly  salute. 

He  was  then  setting  out  to  the  Grand  Central 
Station  for  his  trip  up  the  Hudson  to  West  Point,  the 
Military  Academy  of  the  United  States. 

In  the  superb  white  station,  under  a  curved  arch 
of  ceiling  as  blue  as  the  sky,  he  took  the  full  force  of 
an  affection  that  had  been  growing  steadily  through 
the  visit.  The  immense  floor  of  the  building  was 
dense  and  tight  with  people,  and  the  Prince,  as  he 


New  York  345 


came  to  the  balcony  that  made  the  stair-head  was 
literally  halted  by  the  great  gust  of  cheering  that 
beat  up  to  him,  and  was  forced  to  stand  at  the 
salute  for  a  full  minute. 

The  journey  to  West  Point  skirted  the  Hudson, 
where  lovely  view  after  lovely  view  of  the  piled-up 
and  rocky  further  shore  tinted  in  the  russet  and  gold 
of  the  dying  foliage  came  and  went.  There  was  a 
rime  of  ice  already  in  the  lagoons,  and  the  little 
falls  that  usually  tumbled  down  the  rocks  were 
masses  of  glittering  icicles. 

The  castellated  walls  of  West  Point  overhang  the 
river  above  a  sharp  cliff;  the  buildings  have  a  dra- 
matic grouping  that  adds  to  the  extreme  beauty  of 
the  surroundings.  Toward  this  castle  on  the  cliff 
the  Prince  went  by  a  little  steam  ferry,  was  taken  in 
escort  by  a  smart  body  of  American  cavalrymen, 
and  in  their  midst  went  by  automobile  up  the  road 
to  the  grey  towers  of  West  Point. 

Immediately  on  his  arrival  at  the  saluting  point 
on  the  great  campus  the  horizon-blue  cadets,  who 
will  one  day  be  the  leaders  of  the  American  army, 
began  to  march. 

Paraded  by  the  buildings,  they  fell  into  columns  of 
companies  with  mechanical  precision.  With  precise 
discipline  they  moved  out  on  to  the  field,  the  com- 
panies as  solid  as  rocks  but  for  the  metronomic  beat 
of  legs  and  arms. 

They  were  tall,  smart  youths,  archaic  and  modern 
in  one.  With  long  blue  coats,  wide  trousers,  shakos, 
broad  white  belts,  as  neat  as  painted  lines,  over 
breast  and  back,  and,  holding  back  the  flaps  of  capes, 


34^    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

they  looked  figures  from  the  fifties.  But  the  swing 
of  the  marching  companies,  the  piston-like  certainty 
of  their  action,  the  cold  and  splendid  detachment  of 
their  marching  gave  them  all  the  flare  of  a  corps 
d'elite. 

Forming  companies  almost  with  a  click  on  the 
wide  green,  they  saluted  and  stood  at  attention 
while  the  Prince  and  his  party  inspected  the  lines. 
Then,  the  Prince  at  the  saluting  point  again,  the 
three  companies  in  admirable  order  marched  past. 
There  was  not  a  flaw  in  the  rigid  ranks  as  they  swept 
along,  their  eyes  right,  the  red-sashed  "  four  year 
men  "  holding  slender  swords  at  the  salute. 

The  Prince  lunched  with  the  oflicers,  and  after 
lunch  the  cadets  swarmed  into  the  room  to  hear  him 
speak,  having  first  warmed  up  the  atmosphere  with  a 
rousing  and  prolonged  college  yell.  Having  spoken 
in  praise  of  their  discipline  and  bearing,  the  Prince 
was  made  the  subject  of  another  yell,  and  more,  was 
saluted  with  the  college  whistle,  a  thing  unique  and 
distinctive,  that  put  the  seal  upon  his  visit. 

That  night  the  Prince  played  host  upon  Renown, 
giving  a  brilliant  dinner  to  his  friends  in  New  York. 
This  was  the  only  other  ceremony  of  the  day. 


VII 


Friday,  November  21st,  the  Prince's  last  day  in 
New  York,  was  an  extraordinarily  full  one,  and 
that  full  not  merely  in  program,  but  in  emotion.  In 
that  amazing  day  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  people  of 
this  splendid  city  sought  to  express  with  superb  elo- 


New  York  347 


quence  the  regard  they  felt  for  him,  seemed  to  make 
a  point  of  trying  to  make  his  last  day  memorable. 

The  morning  was  devoted  to  a  semi-private 
journey  to  Oyster  Bay,  in  order  that  the  Prince 
might  place  a  wreath  on  the  tomb  of  President 
Roosevelt.  The  Prince  had  several  times  expressed 
his  admiration  for  the  great  and  forceful  American 
who  represented  so  much  of  what  was  individual  in 
the  national  character,  and  his  visit  to  the  burial- 
place  was  a  tribute  of  real  feeling. 

After  lunch  at  the  Piping  Rock  Club  he  returned 
to  Renown,  where  he  had  planned  to  hold  a  recep- 
tion after  his  own  heart  to  a  thousand  of  New  York's 
children. 

On  Renown  a  score  of  "  gadgets  "  had  been  pre- 
pared for  the  fun  of  the  children.  The  capstans 
had  been  turned  into  roundabouts,  a  switchback  and 
a  chute  had  been  fixed  up,  the  deck  of  the  great  steel 
monster  had  been  transformed  into  fairyland,  while 
a  "  scrumptious  "  tea  in  a  pretty  tea  lounge  had  been 
prepared  all  out  of  Navy  magic. 

The  tugs  that  were  to  bring  off  the  guests,  how- 
ever, brought  few  that  could  come  under  the  head- 
ing of  "  kiddies."  Those  that  were  not  quite 
grown  up,  were  in  the  young  man  and  young  woman 
stage.  Fairyland  had  to  be  abandoned.  Round- 
about and  switchback  and  chute  were  abandoned,  and 
only  that  "  scrumptious  "  tea  remained  in  the  pro- 
gram. It  was  a  pleasant  afternoon,  but  not  a 
*'  kiddies'  "  afternoon. 

The  evening  was  quick  with  crowds. 

It  began  in  a  drive  through  crowds  to  the  Pilgrims' 


34^    Westward  with  the  Frince  of  Wales 

Dinner  at  the  Plaza  Hotel,  and  that,  in  itself,  was  a 
crowd.  The  Plaza  is  none  of  your  bijou  caravan- 
serais. It  is  vast  and  vivid  and  bright,  as  a  New 
York  hotel  can  be,  and  that  is  saying  a  good  deal. 
But  it  was  not  vast  enough.  One  great  marble  room 
could  not  contain  all  the  guests,  another  and  another 
was  taken  in,  so  that  the  banquet  was  actually  spread 
over  three  or  four  large  chambers  opening  out  of 
the  main  chamber.  Here  the  leading  figures  of 
America  and  the  leading  Britons  then  in  New  York 
met  together  in  a  sort  of  breezy  informality,  and  they 
gave  the  Prince  a  most  tremendous  welcome. 

And  when  he  began  to  speak  —  after  the  nimble 
scintillations  of  Mr.  Chauncey  Depew  —  they  gave 
him  another.  And  they  rose  up  in  a  body,  and 
moved  inward  from  the  distant  rooms  to  be  within 
earshot  —  a  sight  for  the  Messenger  in  Macbeth, 
for  he  would  have  seen  a  moving  grove  of  golden 
chair  legs,  held  on  high,  as  the  diners  marched 
with  their  seating  accommodation  held  above  their 
heads. 

Crowds  again  under  the  vivid  lights  of  the  streets, 
as  the  Prince  drove  to  the  mighty  crowd  waiting  for 
him  in  the  Hippodrome.  The  Hippodrome  is  one 
of  the  largest,  if  it  is  not  the  largest,  music-hall  in 
the  world.  It  has  an  enormous  sweep  of  floor,  and 
an  enormous  sweep  of  galleries.  The  huge  space 
of  it  takes  the  breath  away.     It  was  packed. 

As  the  Prince  entered  his  box,  floor  and  galleries 
rose  up  with  a  sudden  and  tremendous  surge,  and 
sent  a  mighty  shout  to  him.  The  National  Anthems 
of  England  and  America  were  obliterated  in  the  gust 


'New  York  349 


of  affectionate  noise.  Minutes  elapsed  before  that 
great  audience  remembered  that  it  was  at  the  play, 
and  that  the  Prince  had  come  to  see  the  play.  It 
sat  down  reluctantly,  saving  itself  for  his  departure, 
watching  him  as  he  entered  into  enjoyment  of  the 
brave  and  grandiose  spectacular  show  on  the  stage. 

And  when  he  rose  to  go  the  audience  loosed  itself 
again.  It  held  him  there  with  the  power  of  its 
cheering.  It  would  not  let  him  stir  from  the  build- 
ing until  it  had  had  a  word  from  him.  It  was  dom- 
inant, it  had  its  way.  In  answer  to  the  splendid  out- 
burst the  Prince  could  do  nothing  but  come  to  the 
edge  of  his  box  and  speak. 

In  a  clear  voice  that  was  heard  all  over  the  build- 
ing he  thanked  them  for  the  wonderful  reception  he 
had  received  that  night,  and  in  New  York  during 
the  week.  "  I  thank  you,"  he  said,  "  and  I  bid  you 
all  good  night." 

Then  he  went  out  into  the  cheering  streets. 

It  was  an  astonishing  display  in  the  street.  The 
throng  was  so  dense,  the  shouting  so  great  that  the 
sound  of  it  drove  into  the  silent  houses  of  other 
theatres.  And  the  audiences  in  those  other  theatres 
caught  the  thrill  of  it.  They  "  cut  "  their  plays, 
came  pouring  out  into  the  street  to  join  the  throng 
and  the  cheering;  it  was  through  this  carnival  of 
affection  that  the  Prince  drove  along  the  streets  to  a 
reception,  and  a  brilliant  one,  given  by  Mr.  Wana- 
maker,  whose  ability  as  Chairman  of  the  Reception 
Committee  had  largely  helped  to  make  the  Prince's 
visit  to  New  York  so  startling  a  success. 


350    Westward  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 

VIII 

On  that  note  of  splendid  friendliness  the  Prince's 
too  short  stay  in  America  ended.  On  Saturday, 
November  22nd,  he  held  a  reception  on  Renown, 
saying  good-bye  to  endless  lines  of  friendly  people 
of  all  classes  and  races  who  thronged  the  great  war 
vessel. 

All  these  people  crowded  about  the  Prince  and 
seemed  loth  to  part  with  him,  and  he  seemed  just 
as  unwilling  to  break  off  an  intimacy  only  just  be- 
gun. Only  inexorable  time  and  the  Admiralty  ended 
the  scene,  and  the  great  ship  with  its  escort  of  small, 
lean  war-craft  moved  seaward  along  the  cheering 
shore. 

Crowds  massed  on  the  grass  slope  under  River- 
side Drive,  and  on  the  esplanade  itself.  The  sky- 
scrapers were  cheering  grandstands,  as  the  ships 
steamed  along  the  impressive  length  of  Manhattan. 
They  passed  the  Battery,  where  he  had  landed,  and 
the  Narrows,  where  the  escorting  boats  left  him. 
Then  Renown  headed  for  Halifax,  where  his  tour  1 
ended.  i 

Certainly  America  and  the  Prince  made  the  best  of 
impressions  on  each  other.  There  is  much  in  his 
quick  and  modern  personality  that  finds  immediate 
satisfaction  in  the  American  spirit;  much  in  him- 
self that  the  American  responds  to  at  once.  When 
he  declared,  as  he  did  time  and  time  again,  that  he 
had  had  a  wonderful  time,  he  meant  it  with  sincerity. 
And  of  his  eagerness  to  return  one  day  there  can 
be  no  doubt. 


New  York  351 


Of  all  the  happy  moments  on  this  long  and  happy- 
tour,  this  visit  to  America,  brief  as  it  was,  was  one 
of  the  happiest.  It  was  a  brilliant  finale  to  the  bril- 
liant Canadian  days. 


(1) 


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